Biggar Rugby Club source: We can’t play rugby again without coronavirus vaccine being available

The Covid-19 pandemic has had the country in home lockdown for six weeks, with sport wiped out and team games like rugby and football among the most unlikely to return swiftly due to factors including the impossibility of 2m social distancing between players during matches.

“We at Biggar don’t believe we can go back to playing rugby until there is a vaccine for coronavirus,” Biggar RFC secretary Mike Booth told the Carluke and Lanark Gazette.

“If there was a way for it to get played we would love it.

“I don’t think there’s any point in rugby players wearing masks.

“They would be ripped off during a game.

“What would happen in a scrum? You would never be able to keep a mask on.

“The players can’t even manage to keep a scrum cap on!

“Common sense would dictate that there should be no rugby played until there is a vaccine (which scientific experts around the world are working on but have stated it is unlikely to be unearthed before the end of 2020).

“Perhaps with football it’s possible to play behind closed doors but I don’t see how it’s possible with rugby.

“I honestly don’t know what the answer is to get play back soon.

“I don’t think there is one.”

Meanwhile, by Monday morning Biggar had enlisted the support of 20 clubs – an increase of just three in a week – backing their bid to overturn the SRU decision to null and void a 2019-20 campaign where Biggar had sealed the Tennent’s National Division 1 crown with two games to spare, thus sealing promotion to the Premiership, a dream which currently lies in tatters.

Biggar – gutted at the prospect of being denied the title and promotion by the coronavirus nightmare – want to trigger a Special General Meeting (SGM) with the SRU by getting at least 24 ‘Yes’ votes from rival clubs they’re asking to support a revised proposal which would see them promoted to a new 11-team Premiership for next season, with no relegation across the divisions.

Backing Biggar in also hoping for an overhaul of the season being binned are Dalkeith Rugby Club, winners of East Division 3.

“We’re getting near our target,” Mike said.

“With a good week we will push on and could get where we want to be.”

Biggar – who haven’t played since a 44-15 win at Stirling Wolves on March 7 – are not expecting to play a full season of rugby in the 2020-21 campaign, whenever that may take place.

Mike added: “A lot of our guys are saying to us: ‘Why don’t you suggest to the SRU that we just finish the 2019-20 season next year because we’re not going to be playing a proper season?’

“But we can’t do that now because the season has been null and voided by the SRU.”

At least one piece of good news which has emerged for Biggar in relation to their dealings with the sport’s governing body is that the Hartreemill outfit is due to receive around £5000 courtesy of the SRU’s Club Hardship Fund.

“The money will be a godsend for us,” Mike said.

“It’s a big club and we’ve got to tick over our electricity bills, rates and things like that.”

Mike said he couldn’t understand why only 60 per cent of hard-up Scottish clubs had applied to the fund, yet some of these same outfits hadn’t so far backed Biggar’s bid for an SGM, citing the fact that they had “more important things to do because they were trying to survive”.