Premiership Rugby announces return date of August 15

Premiership Rugby has announced that it intends to resume the 2019-20 season on Saturday August 15.

The restart date was agreed at a board meeting convened on Thursday night, following the announcement earlier this week that clubs can move to Stage 1: Elite Sport Return to Training, which means they can train either individually or in small-groups.

In a statement from Premiership Rugby, chief executive Darren Childs said: “Nothing will happen until it is safe to do so but we will do everything we can to resume the 2019-20 Gallagher Premiership Rugby campaign on Saturday 15 August.

“We won’t take risks with people’s health, and rugby has unique challenges due to levels of proximity and impact, but with a number of clubs moving to Stage 1, it is important for us to give players, coaches and clubs clarity on when they can look to return. Bearing that in mind, we look forward to the restart of the season.”

The statement added that the structure of the 2019-20 season would follow in due course.

Optimism that the season could be completed increased earlier this week following the return to training guidelines from the Government. 

Not all clubs have confirmed when they plan to return to socially-distanced training - some may not do so for a couple of weeks - but from the moment the guidelines were released there was  growing expectation that the move to stage two – contact training – would be considerably more straightforward than was first feared.

It appears the falling risk of infection, the ability to isolate any player who becomes infected without a significant risk of spreading the disease to others, and clarification that clubs would not have to take players off furlough before returning to training, were key factors.

Procurement of testing kits and the introduction of temperature testing on a daily basis will be part of the process of moving to stage two.

There are still nine rounds of the 2019-20 season remaining, meaning it is unlikely to be finished until late September or early October with the start of next season set to be postponed.