Safety first says Kevin Sinfield as Leeds Rhinos impose pre-season 'firebreak'

Rhinos closed their Kirkstall base yesterday after six players and one member of staff tested positive for coronavirus.

“It has been really difficult and disappointing to say we are closing down for five days, but it is absolutely the right call,” Sinfield said.

“Since returning at the start of January it has been really difficult, especially with the new variant; all the measures put in place over the last 10 months don’t seem to be strong enough at the moment to prevent the spread internally.

“We’ve had a number of positives that have taken down a number of close contacts and we have to put people’s health and safety first, make sure families are safe and play our part in trying to stop the spread across communities.”

Rhinos have taken extra precautions since pre-season began on January 5, including daily testing. Sinfield added: “We’ve done everything we could, we started testing every single training day - last year we were only testing once a week - and it’s still not preventing the spread. We are dealing with a different beast to what we were last year, whether that’s variant two we are not quite sure, but our defence mechanism at the moment hasn’t been strong enough and we need to put something in place to make sure people are safe.”

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