Rugby players were on Monday evening tested for Covid-19 at Kyadondo Rugby Club ahead of return of competitive play.
After about a one year hiatus, rugby competitions in Uganda will return on Saturday, March 6th 2021 with the men’s top tier sides kicking off play in the Rugby Premier League while women will be engaged in the Regional 10s.
However, the Monday PCR tests that were funded by Uganda Rugby Union (URU) involved only male top tier players with the female exercise coming later on.
“URU has funded the testing exercise for all players. We think that the clubs have struggled with their sponsors and they have had no activities for a longer time. We knew the clubs would not manage the funding so we took it up on ourselves.” URU CEO Ramsey Olinga who also got tested told media.
Meanwhile, the government Covid-19 preventive measure in regard to sports events states that players should be tested 72 hours before the event/game. This test will expire in 14 days. Hence, the Sportsmen will have to repeat the test every fortnight.
Last year’s Rugby Premier League was cancelled due to a Covid-19 scare then, making government to ban sports activities and all crowd pulling events and facilities on March 18th 2020.
After the premature cancellation of the Rugby Premier League in September last year, Heathens emerged champions of the 2019/20 season off 63 points, five ahead of second placed Kobs though with five games unplayed by all teams.
There were no promotions nor demotions in all leagues.
The 10 teams that will participate in the upcoming premier league are; Heathens, Kobs, Pirates, Buffaloes, Warriors, Rams, Hippos, Rhinos, Mongers and Impis.
The Women’s 10s RTP competition will be played in satellite tournaments in three regions (Northern, Central and Eastern) with each region holding at least two but not more than three tournaments between 6th March and 1st April.
Other lower tier competitions will return on a later date.
