Is it?

Vaccination doesn't stop covid being transmitted.

The EPL has a low percentage of players vaccinated and is doing just fine with little disruption.

The thought that extremely physical fit young athletes not being vaccinated is somehow the worst crime possible is laughable.

I would love to know how many elite non vaccinated athletes who got covid actually had a rough time with it? The numbers must be extremely small.

This topic is going to be up for much discussion again. The Premier League have this week reported a record number of cases and thats with their players living in la la land in mansions away from Joe public, not like our players who's partners and kids work, shop in supermarkets and go to normal schools making the risk of catching it higher.

If there is any risk of the start of the season being behind closed doors or hit by multiple player absences then for me they should knock the stupid loop games on the head and start a month later, when in theory more people are jabbed and the weather is better (meaning people are outside more)

If things keep panning out the way they are I think we're set for lockdown after Christmas. Sport cancelled for a while. It'd be a disaster for RL and particularly the World Cup, I think that's highly unlikely to happen now. The Government has been so beaten up by the media and Labour that they're doing the opposite now and panicking as soon as possible. Omicron might turn out to be very minor, but they are still going to massively overreact every step of the way now.

There comes a point where they will have to ignore covid and hopefully this is it. If it doesn't produce deaths or hospitalisations sufficient to drown the NHS then we have to move past it. It's not going anywhere. If it does I think we'll see the end of RL as a professional sport next season. But we'll probably be able to watch the riots as if they were sport to see which cities burn each night.

Several Premier League games off this weekend, Super League really is going to have to think fast about whether it really wants to kick off on time and risk postponements and weakened teams, or reduce the season by a few games and kick off later (with in theory less risk of postponments)

Lockdown should be only for the un vaccinated it seems as though 90% of this group is filling up the hospitals.
The medical advisors have made a forecast that we will hit the peak in just a few weeks hence the big push on booster jabs.
Hopefully our season starts as COVID is hitting the bottom of the curve.

Yeah, fingers crossed it rips through and peaks very quickly. If not, another full lockdown would destroy RL I believe, I doubt many teams would survive it, nor the economy in general.

Cas v Salford at home - play fixture and concede 70 points, but took cash from gate and sponsorship
Leigh v Cas - Cas cant raise a team, no costs incurred

2021 was a shambles, please lets get back to a proper season

I go on a different route, if you choose not to be vaxxed and end up needing a hospital bed then you pay for it but are behind those vaxxed who may also need that bed who dont pay for it. Choice is great, and all choice has consequence

Given that around 75,000 NHS staff members are unwilling to take the vaccine never mind the booster, they will have great difficulty punishing anyone for not doing it.

One has already paid for that bed via taxation.

If thats the route to take lets go the full hog and start billing those who choose to smoke drink alcohol, take drugs and via those things end up needing emergency care.

Agreed.

We will be lucky if positive cases are significantly reduced before the new season starts and with players already back in training, it's difficult to see that RL will get a "clean" start to their season.

It was certainly mess last season and the damage done to the games reputation and the knock on effect with Sky, there needs to be a bloody good plan in place, so that we can avoid the nonsense of last season.

If a club cannot raise a side, for whatever reason, they should forfeit the game.
This is a really simple mantra and it puts the onus on each club to keep their house in order.

Of course there will still be some issues along the way and lets hope the general situation improves rapidly for fans, clubs and all involved with the game.

superleague should have thought of this weeks ago, back when they were planning the fixtures - yet again they've made it impossible to rearrange fixtures due to a congested timetable and stupid loops. play each other once home and away. leave some breathing space and an extra nines comp to fill the tv slots.

Yeah it was entirely predictable. There are going to be new variants and waves of existing variants for probably the next 10 years (Unless Omicron or the next one does turn out to be dominant among variants and as deadly as a cold). As with the Government and their policies, any restrictions to normal operations must be judged against 'can we keep doing this for the next 10 years with no/acceptable consequences?'. In the same way we simply can't have more lockdowns as the economy (and mental health) wouldn't sustain itself, we can't have swathes of games cancelled as the gate receipts and Sky money won't be replaced. Games have to be played at a sufficient level to fulfill the TV deals in RL, there can be no exception to that.

Your suggestion of removing any loop fixtures and having a reduced season with room for covid postponements here and there is the best suggestion I've heard. You can always fill gaps in a calendar with events if the covid picture next year is much different. Worst case scenario is overreaction to Omicron delays the start of the season, teams call games off all over the place, Sky pull out and the World Cup doesn't get played.

So change the rules to accommodate. Omicron is no more a killer than standing on a nail. Continually using data on how many have contracted the variant is irrelevant ignoring the figure who have died from it. Lateral flow tests can’t be guaranteed, but a home PCR test can..

Rules need to change.

Nice and easy in principle but, all clubs need revenue and obliterating fixtures to "make space" wont fill the club coffers.

However, it would be eminently sensible that the loop fixtures should be cancelled before others.
The huge difficulty here is the unpredictability of both the virus and the clubs' ability to deal with it effectively (in terms of managing their players and staff).

RL looked poor, with all of the postponements and short term fixture changes.
However, football in the UK seems to be coping even more badly and relatively speaking, they have loadsamoney.

It will be an interesting start to the season and the one certainty is that, the World Cup has to go ahead.