Rassie Erasmus plays down Covid concerns

Colin Newboult

Rassie Erasmus during the Springboks Press Conference on 24 January 2020 at Southern Sun Hotel, Pretoria

South Africa director of rugby Rassie Erasmus is not worried after three of their players tested positive for coronavirus.

Sbu Nkosi, Vincent Koch and Herschel Jantjies were the individuals that returned positive tests, despite the squad being vaccinated, which forced the Springboks to cancel training and put the squad in self-isolation.

There are concerns over the viability of the British and Irish Lions tour following an increase in Covid-19 cases in South Africa, but Erasmus says that they have correctly adhered to protocols.

Squad coming together

“Just to give some perspective: we have been in camp for three weeks and today is the first day that we could really assemble and get the squad together [with] players playing in France, the [English] Premiership and so on,” Erasmus told reporters.

“There’s obviously always a chance for guys coming in from all over that there might be an infection or a positive case here or there. But many provincial and franchise coaches have had to handle these disruptions in the last 18 months.

“We are in British & Irish Lions series time now, and we fall into those protocols now. We immediately advised the medical committee, which looks after those things. We are currently in our rooms waiting for the next steps.

“I really don’t think it’s a big worry in the sense that it’s the first time the guys came from all over and came together.

“I’m pretty confident that it’s an isolated case. None of them has symptoms, and we’ll do retesting [when] the medical committee tell us to.

“The moment we got the players’ positive results, there’s not one management staff member that tested positive, so that’s lucky. It was late last night, and our doctor advised that we inform the committee.”

Erasmus was unable to confirm the source of the positives but said that the three players were asymptomatic.

“It’s a mixed bag,” he added. “I can’t give medical advice, but everybody knew that Herschel already had COVID this year. Vincent came from abroad, and Sbu was with us in camp for three days.

“There are no secrets or something dark or sinister about it. They were just unlucky. They reassembled here, and they are not showing signs, and we are just here in our rooms.

“We just need to follow correct protocol and wait for the committee to tell us exactly what they want us to do next, which we will have in the next couple of hours.

“At this stage, we feel [the outbreak] is to a minimum because we followed protocols when the guys got to the hotel. The hotel is a sanitised zone on its own where nobody can get out except us.”