Wigan Warriors game is ON following Covid-19 case

The RFL revealed yesterday a Warriors player – whose identity has not been revealed – is self-isolating after contracting the virus.

Wigan’s routine weekly testing was brought forward following that incident, and those results have all come back negative.

It means Wigan will travel to Perpignan on Saturday morning on a charter flight, under conditions approved by the British and French authorities.

Not only will it be the first Betfred Super League fixture in France since the resumption of the season last month, it will be the first time a crowd has been at a game since the restart - with 5,000 fans allowed into the ground.

Hull KR, who played Wigan last Thursday, have also received a full negative set of results from their testing this week.

They play St Helens at the Totally Wicked Stadium on Friday.

Authorities were hopeful the two matches would go ahead. Once they had been informed of the player's positive result, they used Test and Trace analysis and identified no close contacts.

A ‘close contact’ is defined, in agreement with Public Health England, as a player having face-to-face contact with someone for three or more seconds which puts them at higher risk of spreading the virus.

Even so, it is a relief that both Wigan and Hull KR have not had to postpone any fixtures given the disruption to the campaign already suffered.

As it stands, Catalans have 13 league games to complete in little more than two months - and they are still in the Challenge Cup competition.

Wigan's game will be televised on Sky Sports, kicking off at 5pm - one of five Super League games shown this round.

Ex-Warriors Sam and Joel Tomkins, Tom Davies, Micky McIlorum and Lewis Tierney are in the Catalans squad, who themselves have been self-isolating because of a recent Covid-19 outbreak in their squad.

The Dragons will finish their isolation period today and return to training for the first time in two weeks.