Ste100Centurions wrote:
I could also be wrong, the way I have interpreted what has been read or said is that Toulouse will be awarded a win for any home game that is not played when the away team refuse to travel, if that is correct & no home games are played in France then they will be guaranteed a 100% home win record. Toulouse can't afford to decamp to England & play all their home games here (source - the Full 80 minutes).
Hopefully the French debacle is over soon & Toulouse get to play over here, they often play a good brand of rugby.
It’s only been discussed for about five pages. Toulouse were awarded a 24 point home victory over London when they refused to travel as they are a full time team and were obliged under the operational rules to go. London will also face a punishment - probably a fine from the RFL.
The games against Widnes and Featherstone are being postponed as part time clubs are not obliged to travel and in fact probably wouldn’t be able to field a team as players couldn’t afford to take time off their other jobs to isolate.
They have another 8 home games (excluding those above) all against part time sides which creates a massive headache. This is where the win percentage requirement comes from as they are likely to lose more and may not be able to re-arrange them all. However, for a club to qualify for the play offs they have to complete 70% of fixtures ie. 16 matches. If no team travels to Toulouse due to COVID travel restrictions they end the season on 12 games (11 away games plus 1 home game awarded because London didn’t travel) irrespective of their win percentage they would need to re-arrange at least 4 of the postponed hole games.
Hopefully travel restrictions are lifted sooner rather than later.
EDIT: only the Widnes and Featherstone games count as postponed the others won’t count if restrictions aren’t lifted.
So yeah if no one goes Toulouse can qualify for the play offs but they have to win their away games.