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England statement: Owen Farrell a 'false positive'

Owen Farrell /Getty

England’s Owen Farrell is set to re-enter the training camp after a positive coronavirus test has been found to have been a ‘false positive’.

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Farrell was forced to watch the opening instalment of the Autumn Nations Series at Twickenham from isolation at the squad’s base in Surrey.

Under Government guidelines, the England captain had to quarantine for 10 days but Eddie Jones insisted discussions with Public Health England were ongoing after wing Jonny May suggested the case is a false-positive.

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Farrell’s withdrawal was announced only 90 minutes before kick-off and Jones refused to rule him out when the Wallabies arrive next weekend.

Now England have confirmed that test was inaccurate. An RFU statement reads: “Owen Farrell will re-join the England squad at Pennyhill Park later today [Sunday 7 November].

“Farrell returned a positive test result from a COVID PCR test (taken on Thursday morning) and immediately went into self-isolation.

“The sample was reviewed by the lab and determined as a false positive test on Saturday morning and subsequently accepted by NHS Test and Trace today. This process is fully in line with the advice given by UK Health Security Agency.

“His subsequent PCRs have also been negative and therefore he has been released from self-isolation.

“The England squad are preparing for their next Test match against Australia [Saturday 13 November, 5.30pm KO].”

Marcus Smith’s artful 29-minute cameo strengthened the case for him starting against the resurgent Wallabies and if Farrell’s case is confirmed as a false-positive, then he will undoubtedly start at inside centre.

But Manu Tuilagi and Slade formed a balanced and effective centre partnership and it is hard to see on what grounds either should make way for Farrell. Jones is loathe to drop Farrell, who is lucky to have escaped the recent cull of old-guard as George Ford has been in superior form, but the fireworks evident against Tonga must surely challenge the Australian’s loyalty to his skipper.

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– additional reporting by PA

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J
JW 2 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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