Seven European matches between British and French teams postponed

Scarlets' game against Bordeaux-Begles was due to be their first competitive match since 22 October after a Covid-hit six weeks

Seven European rugby matches due to be played between French and British teams this weekend have been postponed because of France's new travel rules.

On Saturday, Bath v La Rochelle and Sale v Clermont in the Champions Cup will not go ahead, nor will Worcester v Biarritz in the Challenge Cup.

Scarlets v Bordeaux, Toulouse v Wasps, Stade Francais v Bristol and London Irish v Brive are all off on Sunday.

Tournament organisers hope the games can be played at a later date.

Meanwhile, 47 players from nine different Premiership clubs tested positive for Covid-19, up from just two the previous week.

Earlier this week, France announced that from Saturday travellers who are not French residents or citizens must have a "compelling reason", provide a negative Covid test less than 24 hours old and isolate for at least two days.

Tournament organisers EPCR said: "The board received briefings from the three professional leagues which included updated information from the respective governments, however, there were insufficient assurances that these matches would not be at risk."

EPCR added it would "provide a further update as soon as practicable".

Ospreys' game against Racing 92 on Saturday had already been called off, with the French side awarded a 28-0 bonus-point win because of coronavirus cases in the Welsh camp.

The same happened to Leinster, with Montpellier given a 28-0 win for the fixture due to be played on Friday night because of the Irish province's Covid cases.

And Saracens suffered the same fate for their Challenge Cup game against Pau, which had been scheduled for Saturday.

Analysis

BBC rugby union correspondent Chris Jones

For the third season running, the Champions Cup is sadly compromised, with the latest round of postponements throwing the tournament into a further state of uncertainty.

After previously insisting there was no room to rearrange games, hence why Cardiff and Munster were forced to field teams in round one despite their mass unavailability, EPCR now plans to reschedule the seven matches called off this weekend.

With spare weekends in the calendar at a premium, the obvious solution is to scrap the home-and-away last-16 matches in April and have a straight one-leg knock-out, freeing up one weekend to clear the backlog but denying fans an exciting new format.

The Scarlets can feel aggrieved given they were forced to concede their match with Bristol 28-0 after falling foul of quarantine rules on returning from South Africa, while Covid outbreaks at Leinster and Ospreys meant they were also hit with 28-0 defeats this week, having been told postponing matches wasn't possible.

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