Talking RL: 'There will be some difficult decisions to make'

From wry smiles as I bumped elbows with a mate in a pub, to being told not to go to the pub at all.

Or cafes, or restaurants, or gyms.

Or the office.

Or the training ground.

And, of course, there will be no matches to watch on TV, or go to, or report on.

What started as something serious, on the news, has impacted on everyone and everything.

And sport around the world has felt the full force of the coronavirus pandemic.

There are, of course, more important things in the world right now than sport. My thoughts are with those really affected, either with their health or financial hardship.

But understandably, a lot of people are wondering how this is going to impact on rugby league. With advice changing daily as the crisis deepens, it’s hard to predict what will happen next.

Rugby league in this country, having ploughed on through to last weekend, has fallen in line with other major sports and postponed activity until at least April 3.

If everything goes back to normal then, it will cope.

But does anyone really think it will?

If sports games resume next month – even the month later – I can see solutions for football and rugby union. They may not be ideal, they may involve midweek matches and empty venues, but I can see options.

But if rugby league's postponement is extended well beyond April 3, beyond Good Friday, beyond a planned trip to Toronto and into May, the sport will have some big calls to make.

They need money from matches to survive. It's why the campaign is padded with seven additional ‘loop’ fixtures to give them all an extra three home matches each.

They have already knocked back one plan to play behind closed doors, in front of the Sky Sports cameras, like the NRL.

“I dread to think about what going behind closed doors might do,” Wakefield boss Michael Carter told The Guardian. “If we would have to do that just once, I estimate we’d be looking at a hit of around £60,000.”

From a logistics point of view, it would present problems, too. It seems unlikely the postponement would be lifted on April 3, but even if it was, travel restrictions in France mean Catalans can’t train – let alone play – for a further two weeks.

And the Dragons, remember, will already have five games in hand by April 3 (Wigan, and many others, will have two); if any English-based clubs carried on while Catalans didn't, the table would look even more disjointed.

One solution would be to decide, now, to scrap the loop games; the Magic Weekend plus the six other ‘repeat’ fixtures which are weaved into the campaign. That would protect, even enhance, the integrity of the competition and by reducing to 22 matches, it gives Super League breathing space in case April and even May are wiped out.

But, again, we go back to money; those clubs have already determined their budgets, agreed the players’ contracts... can they afford to take such a hit? Can Carter and Wakefield, for example, afford to lose three home matches – £180,000 by his reckoning? And the television contract is for a pre-determined number of matches.

No. I can't see the season being shortened, at least not drastically.

These postponed games will need to be played.

As teams tumble out of the Challenge Cup, it will provide some weekends for teams to rearrange Super League games but – even in a best-case scenario – I imagine we’ll see some midweek mayhem, some four or five day turnarounds.

Could the season be extended a couple of weeks?

Or the play-offs – played over a month – be truncated? Maybe reduced from five teams to four?

There’s an Ashes series against Australia starting in late October. If coronavirus begins wiping out NRL matches, or Origin is shifted until later in the year – as one plan has suggested – then it's not inconceivable that may be cancelled. Worrying times, indeed.

A few days late, but I wouldn’t want my weekly column to go without saying – from a media perspective – what a great operator Lee Radford has been.

Candid, funny, respectful – he’s everything an interviewee should be.

I understand the decision to sack him. But he has served that club with distinction and class. He deserved much better than to have his sacking announced on live TV by Adam Pearson before, I imagine, he’d spoken to his players, staff, family and friends.

We don’t know when Super League will return.

But if I can get in an early plea: when it does, can Sky Sports keep Chris Kamara?

He lightened the mood of Sunday’s presentation at Castleford. And with many fresh eyes probably watching the game, well done to Sky Sports for finding an excuse to showcase the best action so far.