NRL Covid vaccinations: Rapid testing the key to playing through toughest season ever

Open borders, an end to lockdowns and no mandatory jabs in NRL will all present a massive challenge in 2022, David Riccio reveals the NRL’s plan.

The NRL are convinced 2022 will be the most difficult season on record to avoid suddenly suspending the competition.

The likely end to statewide lockdowns and the opening-up of borders will put players and officials at unprecedented risk of Covid-19 infection of the highly-contagious Delta variant next season.

The code’s preference to have every player and official vaccinated is only one safeguard.

There will be players who choose not to vaccinate – and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo, much to the chagrin of some, has made it clear that the code won’t be making vaccination mandatory.

Unvaccinated players may be banned from travelling interstate – and therefore, as Wests Tigers chair and principal of Brydens Lawyers Lee Hagipantelis suggested this week (see below), placing the million-dollar contracts of players at risk of being terminated by their club.

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The opening up of borders will put players and officials at unprecedented risk of Covid-19 infection. Picture Lachie Millard

From club-supplied data, the NRL are pleased with the climbing numbers of vaccinated players and staff.

The information suggests Cronulla are the current clubhouse leaders with 90 per cent of their top-30 roster of players vaccinated.

Additionally, more than 85 per cent of the NRLW competition have received their first jab.

However, vaccinations won’t stop the spread of the virus within footy clubs.

The anticipated return to freedoms of the wider-public, the increased likelihood of casual-contact infection of players is a massive concern for the NRL.

The response is underway.

Currently being drawn-up for processing by the ARL Commission is the purchase of the same $15 to $20 rapid antigen test kits that saved the NSW racing industry from a $1 billion dollar disaster.

They are a different brand to what the NSW greyhound industry has begun using.

The NRL is working with Singapore-based pharmaceutical company Becton Dickinson on ordering thousands of the rapid antigen kits that hopefully at some point next year, will save the code from suspending games for entire rounds.

NRL Cronulla Sharks player Wade Graham helped lead the code’s Covid-19 vaccine push. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The advantage the tests offer over current nasal and saliva testing is that the results can be received within 15-minutes.

And that’s going to be paramount for the NRL next year.

A vaccinated player can still shed the virus without showing any physical signs of having the virus.

So even if 100 per cent of players and staff are vaccinated, the only fast, efficient and readily available way of detecting the virus every day before training or before a match, is rapid antigen testing.

Across NSW racetracks, jockeys aren’t allowed onto a course without taking the test.

The NRL will be doing exactly the same.

What remains to be seen is what level of protocols the NRL implement in a new season that will include a largely vaccinated playing group, officialdom and wider-public.

Isolation for anyone with a positive case will continue, but club bubbles, interstate travel, the size of crowds and the likelihood of different rules for unvaccinated players will all be decided over the next three months.

In the meantime, the NRL will be on the phone to Singapore.

ANTI-VAX STANCE COULD PROVE REAL CONTRACT KILLER

Anti-vax NRL players risk having their contracts terminated by clubs due to their inability to travel interstate.

That’s the view of one Sydney NRL club chairman amid the governing body’s separate request for all 16 clubs to provide their vaccination numbers for every player and staff.

In what is considered as the NRL’s first step towards implementing a game-wide vaccination policy, club CEO’s have begun forwarding the relevant data for the governing body.

Nick Cotric does his bit for the vaccination drive.

With time on their side until next season and to also compare the different policies of the summer sporting codes, the NRL have allowed players and clubs to undertake their own steps towards full vaccination.

However, the NRL need the data to draw-up policy related to the movement of vaccinated and unvaccinated players next season.

Bulldogs trio Nick Cotric, Jack Hetherington and Jackson Topine continued that process by receiving their jabs at the state‘s only public drive-through facility at Belmore on Wednesday.

In total, 48 Bulldogs players, staff and family members received their vaccinations.

The personal safeguarding efforts of the Canterbury club are timely with Lee Hagipantelis, the principal for Brydens Lawyers and chairman of the Wests Tigers, claiming anti-vax players were in danger of having their contracts terminated by clubs.

Several players, including former Parramatta and NSW Waratahs forward Tepai Moeroa, who is now with the Melbourne Storm, and Raiders fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, have taken to social media recently to offer their anti-vax views.

Hagipantelis believes it’s inevitable that anti-vax players will have their contracts cut – like the NBL has done – due to the likelihood of restricted interstate travel.

Illawarra Hawks import Travis Trice and NZ Breakers star Tai Webster were both cut this week from their NBL contracts for opting against being vaccinated.

Tai Webster is one of two NBL players who have had their contracts terminated.

Their decision meant the duo would be unable to travel freely within Australia.

Brydens Lawyers sponsors NBL franchise, the Sydney Kings, providing Hagipantelis with an acute insight into a similar direction he believes NRL clubs will take towards unvaccinated players.

“This is a discussion I’ve had with the owner of the Kings, Paul Smith,’’ Hagipantelis told SEN radio’s Andrew Voss.

“These organisations, the NRL and basketball, are employers of players who have a contractual relationship with the organisation to provide a particular service.

“That service, as per the contract, would include interstate and international travel.

“The fact that they would be unable to fulfil their contractual obligations by reason of their choice not to get vaccinated means that the contract is frustrated and perfectly entitled for the employers to terminate.

“Will that occur in the NRL? I’m absolutely convinced it will.

“Moving forward, we have the Northern Territory has already announced there will be no unvaccinated person getting into that state.

Brydens Lawyers principal Lee Hagipantelis.

“If I recall correctly, Parramatta takes one game to Darwin each year, so that might be a significant problem for any Parramatta player who is not vaccinated.

“The club will have to make a decision on whether that player is simply stood down for the game or alternatively whether it puts in place these contractual arrangements with the club.”

The NT have announced over the past 48 hours that unvaccinated public who do not have a pre-approved reason for travel will be banned from entering the Territory.

Eels chief executive Jim Sarantinos said it was too early to consider if the club were at risk of being without players for the trip to Darwin, but added his club were comfortable with the current rate of staff and players who have been vaccinated.

“We’ve got a long and trusted relationship with the Northern Territory government and if there’s any process that we need to work through, we’re sure that relationship will help us in that process,’’ Sarantinos said.