Premiership Rugby bans try celebrations and ice baths in bid to tackle Covid-19

Try celebrations and ice baths are now banned in Premiership Rugby as the league attempts to curb the spread of Covid having had to cancel another game.

The East Midlands derby between Northampton and Leicester became the fifth match of the season to be called off after positive cases at Saints.

It means three rounds in a row have now been hit by coronavirus.

Try celebrations are now banned in Premiership Rugby as they try to tackle the rise of Covid-19

Ice-filled recovery baths at training are no longer allowed for teams due to increase of Covid

Northampton Saints’ clash vs Leicester Tigers is now off after a breakout of cases at the club

Northampton’s training ground will now be closed until their next round of tests on Monday, and when points are awarded they will take two and Leicester four from the axed match under league regulations.

With more transmittable strains of Covid now in circulation and following a worrying trend of cancellations the league’s organisers have decided to introduce harsher strictures around training and match-days designed to minimise unnecessary contact.

Sportsmail has learned that includes no ‘post-try face-to-face celebrations’ on match-days, ‘non playing players’ will no longer be able to attend games to boost home support and players will have to take food away from the ground after.

While social-distancing and face covering measures will be tightened up too all pre-match warm-ups will now be filmed to help identify close contacts in the event of an outbreak.

And at training ice-filled recovery baths are no longer allowed, changing rooms should only be used to shower, all meetings must either take place outside or virtually and food must not be eaten indoors.

While Premiership players are tested for Covid at least once a week these measures are designed to help further reduce transmission. At present, the league expects the five other matches this weekend to go ahead.

Chris Boyd, in charge of Northampton who have seen two consecutive matches called off after their Irish game fell last week, said of the derby cancellation: ‘We has been absolutely rigorous in how we have followed the protocols laid out for us, and despite returning a number of positive tests this week, we were confident that we have more than enough of our squad still healthy and available to play the game if required.

‘However, we are following the advice we have been given, which was not to play the game and to close our training facility until next week.’

Steve Borthwick at Leicester said: ‘We understand the situation, having been through it, and will offer whatever support we can to our friends down the road.’

Exeter’s Rob Baxter revealed the Chiefs have had positives but will test players again in the coming days to make sure they can play Bristol, who are all clear, on Saturday.

‘We feel a responsibility to get on top of things very quickly and not risk players going on to the field with anything, or risking transmitting anything to Bristol,’ said Baxter.

Up at Newcastle, director of rugby Dean Richards has said the Falcons have been using ‘rapid-flow’ tests to supplement the usual rounds coordinated by Randox and thinks others should too.

‘I’m a big believer in rapid-flow tests,’ said Richards.

‘I don’t see why they can’t be used more going forward depending on the accuracy of them.

‘They are far cheaper than the system we’re using at the moment, but we still need the baseline figure that Randox gives us at the moment.’