‘Covid-hit Bulls hope to play Lions later – even if in the Cape’

The fact that the British and Irish Lions tour will be moving to Cape Town at the end of the week is ironically a beacon of hope for the Bulls that their match against the tourists might still happen, according to the franchise’s CEO Edgar Rathbone.

SA Rugby confirmed on Tuesday night that the Bulls’ match against the Lions scheduled for Loftus Versfeld on Saturday has, at this stage, been postponed due to four players and one member of the medical staff testing positive for Covid. It is now up to the Lions and SA Rugby to see if the match can be rescheduled.

ALSO READ: Covid crisis: Lions tour match off, Boks-Georgia also in danger

Rathbone, while accepting that the matter is now out of the Bulls’ hands, is hopeful that the game will still go ahead. The Bulls, although they were arguably the best club team in the world back then, also did not get to play against the Lions in 2009 for what can only be described as some arcane SA Rugby in-house political issue when it came to drawing up the schedule.

“It’s a big disappointment for the players because they were very excited to play, but the positive, the good news for the players, is that it is not cancelled and at this stage they are looking at a postponement, so there is a bit of hope,” Rathbone said.

“It depends on the date fitting into both the Lions and Currie Cup schedules. The Lions only come every 12 years but the Currie Cup runs on log-points, so it’s a tight balance.

“One option is the Tuesday before the first Test (July 20), but we have three Currie Cup games in the space of just about a week then. Playing midweek games between Tests has not been scheduled before.

“But the tour is definitely not in jeopardy, the Sharks are already in their bubble and will play the Lions on Wednesday night.

“After that the Lions play against SA A and the Stormers in Cape Town where there are much lower Covid numbers. Logically, with the Lions then in their bubble in Cape Town, our game if rescheduled will most probably happen in the Cape.”

And it’s not as if the Bulls are an island of infectivity either, because SA Rugby have confirmed that four more Springbok players (Marvin Orie, Frans Steyn, Handre Pollard and Frans Malherbe) plus six of their management team, including head coach Jacques Nienaber, as well as four Georgia players, have tested positive.

Lock Lood de Jager tested positive on Monday, while last week Vincent Koch and Sbu Nkosi tested positive for the coronavirus.