Waiting on a vaccine could prove ‘dangerous’; Rugby introduces new law

Predicating any return to sport after Covid-19 on the discovery of a vaccine could prove "dangerous" and "ridiculous", according to Prof Kingston Mills. The professor of experimental immunology and head of the Centre for the Study of Immunology at Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute in Dublin, explains: "It's no walk in the park, creating this vaccine, so I think it's a very dangerous rule or standard, or whatever the word is, to take, to say you're not going to do anything until there's a vaccine". Looking ahead to the Dublin Marathon, he believes runners in general are low-risk, but 25,000 runners at once? "I could envisage a scenario where you had a field of a couple of hundred runners, maybe even set them at intervals, like they do in team time trials in cycling. Say at 20-second intervals, and say if the fastest-ranked runners went off last, it could actually be quite exciting."

The FAI does not expect there to be supporters at any Nations League games played at the Aviva stadium this autumn and its interim CEO, Gary Owens, believes that the fixture list might yet be revisited so as to reorder the games or even push some of them back into next year in an effort to mitigate the financial impact on the association. "We have had about six Covid-19 projections at this stage," Owens tells The Irish Times, "but we are now working on the assumption that there will be the games this year but not the fans. That will challenge us." The prospect of Premier League clubs in England getting the go-ahead to finish the season in their own stadiums has increased after a meeting involving the police, league and UK government officials.

Rugby players will no longer be able to score a try by grounding the ball against the base of the post protectors following a law change announced by World Rugby with immediate effect. In the latest entry to our sporting controversies series Gerry Thornley recalls when Ireland toured South Africa in 1981, to a backdrop of demonstrations. The IRFU's role in the sport's dealings with with South Africa is not one to be proud of: "rugby's relationship with apartheid, both good and bad, can never be erased. It's there in black and white."

Meanwhile Philip Reid has put together an all you need to know guide as top level golf restarts this week, read that here. And in his column this morning, Sean Moran reflects on the bizarre reaction to Seán Cavanagh's "UK" remark when referring to the Ulster counties: "he represented Ireland and the GAA's sporting culture magnificently, which is something purveyors of spiteful invective and little tricolours on social media should reflect on before maligning him."