Doubts emerge over Northampton's Premiership derby with Leicester

Uncertainty hovers over the Northampton Gallagher Premiership clash with Leicester on Saturday after Saints returned a “limited number” of positive tests for coronavirus.

The latest round of testing undertaken on Monday uncovered the cases and the club are now going through contact tracing protocols as they look to avoid a second-successive match cancellation after an outbreak at London Irish resulted in last weekend’s trip to Brentford being called off.

“We’ve had a limited number of positive Covid tests this week and are currently working through the associated protocols with the medical oversight group and other stakeholders,” a Northampton spokesperson said regarding the Premiership clash wih Leicester.

Saints were awarded the win for last weekend's cancellation against Irish, a Premiership Rugby spokesperson explaining: “Following London Irish’s inability to fulfil their Gallagher Premiership Rugby fixture against Northampton Saints as a result of Covid-19, Saints have been awarded the win and four league points.

“London Irish shall be deemed to have lost the match but awarded two league points. The match score shall be recorded as 0-0."

Before last weekend's cancellation, Northampton boss Chris Boyd had outlined his satisfaction with how Saints had dealt with the challenge of trying to play rugby in the pandemic, but how they travel to their away matches was something he was struggling to still fully get his head around all these months on from the Premiership’s first return to action last August following the lockdown in England.

“Certainly all the away games we have gone to, we have travelled in two coaches," he said. "That one gets me slightly. We are in a bubble and we have all been tested, yet we have got to travel in two coaches – but you hop on an aeroplane to go to a European fixture… it’s a little bit different but we will do what we need to do.”