The first day of the Premiership is not cancelled. The matches scheduled for Friday evening are postponed to Saturday or Sunday. The authorities had reminded that there is no obligation not to play in tribute to the Queen.
The English rugby championship – the Premiership – was to start on Thursday evening with the meeting between Saracens and the Northampton Saints. An inaugural match obviously postponed, the kick-off being scheduled less than two hours after the announcement of the death of the Queen.
Would the whole first day suffer the same fate? The answer fell at the beginning of the afternoon, this Friday, at the end of a long meeting of the steering committee of the PRL. The verdict ? The meetings scheduled for this Friday evening are postponed to Saturday or Sunday, the rest of this first day being disputed normally this weekend.
Thus the Bristol-Bath match, scheduled for this Friday evening, will be played on Saturday (kick-off 5:30 p.m.). The Sale-Northampton match should also be rescheduled for this weekend.
A loss of 300,000 pounds for clubs already in debt
The authorities had recalled that there is no obligation to postpone and that this decision was at the discretion of each. The English federation (RFU) has therefore finally given the green light. The argument of a loss of 300,000 pounds in the event of a complete postponement of this first day weighed in the balance, the English rugby clubs being heavily in debt…
The Scottish Rugby Federation took the opposite decision. No match will be played this weekend on its soil, including the preparation meeting for the Women’s World Cup between Scotland and Spain. However, the leaders have not yet made a decision regarding the friendly match between Treviso and Edinburgh, scheduled for Friday evening in Italy.
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