Wayne Pivac Discusses Lockdown and Rugby’s Future

Whilst the world continues in the current unprecadated state in the fight against the Coronavirus, Wales Head Coach, Wayne Pivac has described his new-found respect for the teaching profession as he embarks on a new role of home-schooling.
“It’s been a mixture really, it started off a bit of a novelty, certainly around the household here,” admitted Pivac. “I’ve become a bit of a teacher as well as doing what we’re doing with the rugby behind the scenes and I have new-found respect for teaching and I guess the sooner they can get back to school the better!”
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the completion of the current rugby season, if at all, Pivac maintains that preparations continue for potential scenarios, even though obviously rugby is currently low down in the list of priorities.
There are, however, on-going discussions about how the season can be completed should the decision be made that rugby is allowed to re-commence. “We would want to conclude the club championship if we could, and no doubt Europe will want to do the same,” Pivac revealed. “What is the rugby they want to see?” he continued. “PRO14 play-off games or regional derby matches – there are a lot of difference scenarios being looked at. How that fits in with whatever amout of time we’ve got, who knows, but there are a lot of people doing a lot of work on how the season might finish. It’s not an easy landscape to work through.”
He has kept in constant touch with his squad during this period, revealing that Coronavirus does not discriminate, with squad members being among those that have been affected.
“I have spoken to all the players since the lockdown, about four or five had symptoms like a cough or a temperature,” he revealed. “But nobody was required to go to hospital , they all dealt with it at home and have come out the other side.”
“What that is telling us is that you can be the fittest bloke in the world,” he continued. “Young, fit atheletes can pick it up just like the older people can. We have been fortunate that nobody has been seriously ill with the virus.”
Due to the uncertainty concerning an end to the current situation, Pivac acknowledged that it had been a challenge with regards to training but despite it now appearing highly unlikely that the summer tour to New Zealand will happen as planned, the players continue to train at home, preparing as if the tour is still going ahead.
“As soon as we got wind of the fact that we would all be staying at home we broke our gym down,” Pivac revealed. “We have 40 Olympic bars and all 38 players have got one at home, along with some weights to work with. They have all been given programmes by Paul Stridgeon to get them through, these are adjusted every week.”
With lack of game time, Pivac admitted that this was almost like an off-season phase but following on from pre World Cup training camps, the World Cup, regional and European Rugby before embarking on the Six Nations, the feedback from the players has been positive both physically and mentally.
Like many across the world, the mental effect of these unparalleled circumstances has been a tough challenge, but Pivac revealed that this has been addressed by the WRU who have researched assisting the players and staff in a whole spectrum of issues from anxiety to sleepless nights.
“Apart from that, at the start of my tenure, we employed a sports psychologist who is also a clinical psychiatrist,” Pivac divulged. “He is working on a daily basis with our staff and players , doing a lot of one on one stuff over the phone, video hook-ups. We are doing everything we can to get through this period.”
Coupled with this, the WRU medical team are also working through a process for when a return to playing is acceptable with Pivac acknowledging that it won’t just be a case of turning up for training and playing. Prav Mathema, the head of medical is currently involved in the return to play procedure. “One would imagine there will be testing involved because you are asking to stay two metres apart and to play a game of rugby, those two sentences don’t go together,” Pivac admitted. “There will be something we will have to do to ensure we can go through the rugby process.”
As ever, player welfare is paramount with discussions on-going given that the amount of time the players will have been away from the game is longer than normal and every care will be taken to ensure that the return to play programme is managed correctly in order to avoid injury.
“What we want to do is make sure that when we come back, we can ramp up the volume as we go along,” continued Pivac. “I would imagine it will be five to six weeks before we are in a position to play rugby once we are allowed back into full training – it is going to be an interesting return.”
With the future uncertain and the possibility of both the Scotland Six Nations fixture and the New Zealand game being added on to the Autumn Internationals, again, all scenarios are being looked at, but every nation would be in the same boat ensuring it would be even across the board. However, Pivac believes that this is the perfect opportunity to have a look at the global calendar.
“I think what we have to now is an opportunity as rugby people to sit down together and to do that,” concluded Pivac. “In the past there’s been the northern hemisphere playing rugby while the southern might have been off and vice versa. It’s tricky to get everyone together and nut these things out. It’s not an easy question to solve, but I think now we do have that opportunity. I think the game might look a little bit different, certainly in the short term post Covid-19, so I think it’s a great opportunity and I think the global season is probably one we’d all like to see put under some scrutiny and see if we can come up with something that is suitable for both northern and southern hemisphere rugby.”