Covid continues to ravage the Scots' summer

Scotland v Romania cancelled

Scotland’s summer plans have been torn to shreds after they were forced to call off a second match, following further positive Covid-19 tests in their camp – this time the Test with Romania on 10 July has been canned.

They had previously cancelled their match against England A last week after three positives in camp, and all of their players and staff are still in isolation. This now raises doubts about whether the Scots will play at all this summer, with the last chance to play coming against Georgia in Tbilisi on 17 July.

The SRU says the situation “remains fluid.”

Scottish Rugby chief executive, Mark Dodson, said of the disappointment: “Player welfare is paramount in every decision that we make as an organisation, and unfortunately we’ve run out of time to allow our players to recover and train properly for the Romania fixture.

“We’re clearly disappointed, and I feel massively for both our group of players and management, as well the Romanian Rugby Federation, however our squad’s health and wellbeing must come first.”

With Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend leading the attack for the British & Irish Lions, Mike Blair is in interim charge of the national team. He has added of the move: “It’s clearly been a disappointing couple of days. However, since meeting as a squad over a fortnight ago, the determination and resilience shown by this group has been evident to see, and we’ll move forward with that Georgia fixture very much in focus.”

The hope is that next week the Scottish athletes can return to training and begin building towards a trip to Tbilisi. Georgia have two Tests in South Africa ahead of that fixture. 

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