Leinster will face the winners of the last 16 tie between Exeter and Lyon in the quarter-finals of the Heineken Champions Cup next weekend after Leo Cullen's side, as expected, were awarded a walkover following the cancellation of their last 16 tie against Toulon.
This was due to a Toulon player testing positive for Covid-19 last Wednesday, even though he remained in France while the remainder of the squad travelled to Dublin, where they completed all PCR tests on Wednesday evening without any positive cases.
In line with previously cancelled matches this season, the tournament’s match result resolution committee met by video this afternoon and decided to award the tie to Leinster.
An EPCR statement at 6pm today confirmed: “Following the cancellation of the Heineken Champions Cup, round of 16 fixture between Leinster and RC Toulon due to health and safety concerns for players, club staff and match officials alike, the result of the match has been decided by a match result resolution committee.
"The committee, comprising members of the EPCR management team, with EPCR board members, Andrea Rinaldo (FIR) and Robert Howat (SRU), as observers, considered the facts regarding the cancelled match today (Friday April 2nd).
“Following medical advice that the match could not be played safely, RC Toulon were unable to select a match day squad after it was deemed that the club had a number of high-risk close contacts with one of its non-travelling players who had tested positive for Covid-19.
“Therefore as RC Toulon could not fulfil the fixture, the committee decided under the terms of EPCR’s Covid-19 protocol that Leinster will progress to the Heineken Champions Cup quarter-finals on the weekend of April 9/10/11th.”
The Toulon owner and president Bernard Lemaitre, who bought out previous owner Mourad Boudjellal last year, had earlier reacted swiftly and indignantly to the cancellation of the game, and the virtual certainty that Leinster would be awarded the tie.
“It’s disgusting, the player tested positive on Wednesday and immediately isolated. The EPCR was immediately informed, but let us go to Dublin. For more than 24 hours. And despite a total negative re-test of the players last night at 8pm, these people made this decision less than five hours before the match.”
This is not the first time Toulon and EPCR have been at war with each other, as Toulon’s refusal to play the Scarlets less than two hours before kick-off over fears of Covid safety led to that game being one of four cancelled that weekend, with the Welsh side awarded a 28-0 victory.
Toulon had been informed by EPCR, the competition organisers, that the game was safe to go ahead after a Scarlets player who had tested positive in the week had been withdrawn from training, along with those he had been in close contact with. Toulon disagreed and refused to comply.
