IT HAS BEEN a crazy couple of days in the rollercoaster affair of Leinster v Montpellier but the saga ends with the Irish province feeling very aggrieved.
The Champions Cup game between the sides that was scheduled to take place tomorrow night in France has been officially cancelled, with EPCR confirming a decision to award a 28-0 bonus-point victory to the Top 14 club.
This story started last Friday when Leinster confirmed that three of their players had tested positive for Covid-19.
The three players were “tested outside the PCR testing window,” said the Leinster statement, highlighting that the players had taken tests themselves outside of the province’s regular in-house testing programme.
Leinster tested the remaining 94 players, coaches, and staff in their set-up, with one further positive Covid case confirmed for a member of staff. The four positive cases went into self-isolation and Leinster hoped that might be the end of it as they went on to play Bath last Saturday in the Champions Cup, notching a 45-20 bonus-point win.
Meanwhile, Montpellier reported four positive Covid cases in their set-up last week but they too went on to play Exeter in England last Saturday, suffering a 42-6 defeat.
On Tuesday, the French club confirmed that they had recorded a fifth positive Covid case during a round of testing on Monday. That individual followed the other four into self-isolation.
Leinster postponed their planned training session on Monday as they re-tested their entire set-up, announcing on Tuesday that they had recorded an unspecified “additional number” of positive Covid cases.
However, the remainder of the squad was cleared by authorities to return to training at their base in UCD and Leo Cullen’s men completed a training day on Tuesday. They took additional precautions with social distancing for meetings and strict mask-wearing, even when they were scrummaging in training.
On Wednesday, EPCR met virtually with both clubs to assess the situation and the game was still set to go ahead last night – albeit Leinster and Montpellier were waiting for the results of their latest rounds of testing.
Unfortunately for Leinster, there were further positive Covid cases reported in their squad after Wednesday’s testing – bringing their total well into double figures. Montpellier haven’t recorded another positive since that fifth case from their testing on Monday.
However, Leinster still had enough players to name a matchday squad to travel to Montpellier. All 23 players named have completed five rounds of antigen tests and four rounds of PCR tests in the last six days without recording a single positive result.
As such, Leinster were given the green light by Irish authorities to travel to France for the game. The province informed EPCR that they were ready and willing to fulfill the fixture, while Montpellier did the same after coming through their latest round of testing without any additional new cases.
Leinster and Montpellier both submitted their matchday 23s and they were formally announced by EPCR at midday today.
The game seemed set to go ahead, but there was still a big hurdle to clear this afternoon.
All testing data from both clubs was submitted to EPCR’s Match Risk Assessment Committee – which is made up of doctors from EPCR’s Medical Advisory Group and an independent specialist with experience in virology.
That committee’s role is to decide if the game in question should go ahead. They look at the facts from a medical point of view, assessing whether it is safe for the game to proceed.
They returned a verdict that it was not safe for the Montpellier v Leinster game to go ahead. That decision was communicated to the rugby branch of EPCR, whose job was then to decide where the match points should be awarded.
This was naturally a very difficult case given that both clubs had recorded positive Covid cases over the past week but EPCR’s decision fell in Montpellier’s favour.
It’s understood that the fact that Montpellier have not reported a positive case since their testing on Monday was a crucial factor. Leinster reported new cases today, although none of those were for players named in their matchday 23.
EPCR met online with Leinster late this afternoon and relayed their decision but the Irish province fought strongly against it. They pointed out that they had a matchday squad ready and willing to travel and that they had been given clearance from Public Health Ireland to depart for France tomorrow morning, while they highlighted that Montpellier were also ready and willing to play.
They stressed that their named matchday squad and staff had all come through six days of stringent Covid testing without returning a single positive result.
Leinster also pointed out again that Montpellier had recorded positive Covid cases in the past week.
Leinster made the point that calling the game as a 0-0 draw would be a far fairer outcome if it could not go ahead.
However, Leinster’s protests ultimately fell on deaf ears and EPCR stuck with their decision, finally publicly announcing it at 6pm this evening.
11 minutes later, Leinster issued a statement to express their disappointment at the decision, pointing out that they had Irish government approval for their matchday 23 to depart tomorrow.
It was a measured public response given the anger that is felt behind the scenes at the decision going in Montpellier’s favour. After last weekend’s bonus-point win over Bath, this is a clear and obvious setback for Leinster.
They still have pool games at home against Montpellier and away to Bath to come in January, but there are plenty of unknowns ahead, of course. Leinster were confident they could have gone to Montpellier tomorrow and won, despite missing lots of senior players.
While Leinster should still have more than enough quality to advance into the round-of-16 of the Champions Cup, this decision does damage to their aims of being one of the highest-ranked clubs at the end of the pool stages.
The round-of-16 is set to be played on a home-and-away basis over two legs, but the highest-ranked clubs from the pool stage will have home venue advantage for both the quarter-finals and semi-finals, which are straightforward single knock-out games.
In that sense, Leinster will be going full tilt for those games against Montpellier and Bath, looking to rack up big wins that improve their prospects of getting home venue advantage for possible quarter-final and semi-finals.
For now, though, there is anger.
Originally published at 21.00
