• Saturday’s Lions v Pumas Super Rugby Unlocked game has been postponed due to Covid-19 regulations.
• This comes after Pumas players returned a positive Covid-19 tests.
• SA Rugby said they will look to play the fixture, as well as the Pumas’ match against the Bulls, at a later stage.

Covid-19 has once again dealt a blow to the Super Rugby Unlocked tournament after SA Rugby announced on Friday that the match between the Lions and Pumas at Ellis Park on Saturday will be postponed.

In a statement, the federation stated that mandatory weekly testing saw one Pumas player return a positive result. 

A second batch of tests were commissioned, which saw two more players test positive.

Contact tracing commenced and showed that all three infected players were part of a scrum session.

As a consequence, all the other players involved in that drill will need to go into self-isolation.

“A number of the Pumas forwards have been placed in quarantine for ten days,” SA Rugby said.

“The decision was taken as part of prescribed precautions advised by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) to limit the risk of further infection in the rugby community.”

SA Rugby is planning to reschedule this weekend’s fixture as well as the Pumas’ clash against the Bulls in Pretoria next week.

This latest development will further raise questions over the integrity of the competition after the Cheetahs and Lions were docked four to even five potential log points following six positive tests out of the Lions camp.

Both teams couldn’t find a suitable date to reschedule and were awarded two points.

While the weekend’s game wouldn’t have too much of a bearing on the log, the problem comes in with the Bulls fixture, who would be banking on next week’s match to seal the Super Rugby Unlocked title.

“Plans are already being made to reschedule both Pumas’ matches. 

The Griquas match against Sharks and the Stormers meeting with the Cheetahs are unaffected.”