The faith-restoring promise made to Bath after Premiership testing blunder

The faith of Bath in the testing programme for the Gallagher Premiership has been restored after being reassured last week’s blunder will not happen again. The Recreation Ground club placed a large number of players and staff into self-isolation after being told by Randox Health, the league’s coronavirus testing company, that they had returned 19 positives.

However, Randox discovered that a mistake had been made and that the real number was one case, enabling Bath to reopen their training ground and for many personnel to exit quarantine. “We have had the details via the scientists at Public Health and at Randox. We are very confident it’s something that won’t be repeated,” director of rugby Stuart Hooper said.

“It was around an error when they did the tests. It wasn’t as simple as reading some of them wrong, it was an error when they did the tests. Whether we still have confidence in the system was something that was asked straight away.

“The fact Public Health England were so good – they are incredibly thorough – means I take great comfort from the conversations they had with Premiership Rugby to make sure we can have faith in the testing process.

“The players and staff need to understand they are as safe as possible. Initially, when hearing the news of the mistake, it was just relief for the guys that they are not actually sick. When you hear you have got 19 people... you don’t want that many people to be sick. That gets lost sometimes.”

In an eventful Tuesday for the Premiership club, it also emerged that Sam Underhill was withdrawn injured from the England Six Nations squad while a deal was confirmed with Jacques du Toit, the new Bath signing from South Africa. “It’s disappointing for him but the outlook is pretty positive," said Hopper about Underhill.

"We’re talking weeks more than anything else. He picked it up against Wasps earlier this month and it probably has been a bit of a niggle for him. He was assessed this morning [Tuesday] by the England medics and the decision was made."