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Springboks rocked by Covid-19 close call in Brisbane - reports

(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

The Springboks have survived a Covid-19 scare, according to reports out of Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Rugby Championship avoided being thrown into fresh COVID-19 chaos after a member of the Springboks support staff returned a false positive test.

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According to the SMH, the Springboks staff member initially returned a positive test and was immediately placed under investigation by Queensland Health after flying from Cape Town to Brisbane at the weekend.

The Australian newspaper reported that the staff member was on the charter flight alongside the rest of the Springboks and Los Pumas squad, who are completing “managed isolation” on the Gold Coast before the first of four double-headers kicks off in Queensland next weekend.

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Aviation sources told the Herald staff on the plane had been alerted.

“We have processes in place with all the state health departments who we work with closely in regards to any positive cases on our flights,” a Qantas spokesperson said.

“Managed isolation” allows for players and staff to move between their hotel rooms and training facilities, but sources with knowledge of the situation told the Herald the Springboks and Los Pumas were all forced to isolate on Monday until the staff member completed further testing.

However, Herald revealed that the South African support staff member, who is fully vaccinated, has since returned a pair of negative tests.

A Rugby Australia spokesperson confirmed that the case had been deemed a false positive by Queensland Health.

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The two teams will resume normal training on Tuesday.

The scare comes just days after SANZAAR and RA confirmed the final four rounds of the tournament would all be played in Queensland, kicking off on Sunday week.

If the case had been deemed genuinely positive, the tournament would have been thrown into fresh doubt as all Springboks and Los Pumas players and staff would have been unable to train in the lead-up to next Sunday’s matches at Cbus Super Stadium.

Meanwhile, the Springboks have postponed Monday (August 30) and Wednesday’s media briefing until further notice.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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