Cockerill among three to miss flight to Italy

Head coach Richard Cockerill and two others have been forced to miss their flight to Italy to take on Zebre in Parma in the PRO14 due to a delayed test result.

Cockerill, fullback Blair Kinghorn and a physio were all forced to stay behind in Edinburgh as a result of the delay and will miss the match. They have all since tested negative.

A statement on the club website reads: “…the results for the Head Coach, player and physiotherapist were delayed on Friday morning leaving their Covid-19 status unknown, meaning they were not in a position to fly on the team’s charter flight. All other test results were negative.

“Their tests have subsequently been completed and were confirmed to be negative.”

Currently, Scottish Rugby operates a twice-weekly testing regime for both their professional teams.

“We continue to take our Covid protocols extremely seriously and, while we have returned two sets of negative test results this week, the uncertainty created by Richard, Blair and our physio’s delayed results meant we took the decision to not put the wider group at any potential risk and they did not travel,” said Edinburgh Rugby’s Managing Director, Douglas Struth.

“With support from Scottish Rugby the club applies stringent Covid-19 measures for the safety of our players, coaches and wider performance team to both protect the health of our employees and in acknowledgment of the privileged position in which we operate.”

Cockerill remains in contact with the team. The team are looking to bounce back from the loss to Glasgow Warriors in the 1872 Cup last weekend.

“This is obviously a very important match for us and our efforts to climb the table at the back end of the season,” said Cockerill this week.

“We were disappointed to lose by the narrowest of margins away against Glasgow last time out and have once again picked a strong side that we believe can go out there and get the win we need.

“Like us, we’re anticipating Zebre will have their international players available to them before the Six Nations gets underway, so we’re expecting a tough match between two good sides.”