Sheffield Eagles just want to play as rugby league makes coronavirus decision

That would be a fair assessment of what is running through the minds of the majority of people involved at the business end of rugby league.

The escalating coronavirus pandemic has created conversations in boardrooms across sport that are unprecedented, hence the differing approach some sports have taken.

Rugby league had until yesterday been stoic, until the Rugby Football League took the decision to suspend its season from Super League down to the amateur pyramid, encompassing the Championship where Sheffield Eagles ply their trade.

“We just deal with it day by day,” Sheffield Eagles stand-off Anthony Thackeray told The Yorkshire Post, echoeing a sentiment shared, no doubt, by many of his peers.

“If you get the phone call to say you’re not coming in, you’re not coming in because there’s a lot more important things going on in the world at the minute.

“We love playing rugby, don’t we? But I don’t know too much about the coronavirus, other than what we’ve been told.

“If it’s going to spread and we’re going to get it, obviously the country is trying to contain it, but I just don’t know.

“Preferably, we would have carried on and gone about our business but that’s not in our hands.

“Right now it feels as if the world has gone mad.”

That world for semi-professional rugby league players sees the vast majority work a full-time job during the day, train in the evening and play on Sundays.

Thackeray, 34, who joined Sheffield last season after spells with six other Yorkshire clubs, is a mortgage broker by day.

“It isn’t going to affect me too much, I can gladly work from home,” he said, before switching attention to how he would want to proceed playing-wise in the event of a suspension. “I’d want to train because you’ve got to keep on top of it.

“Even in the close season you usually have one or two weeks off and then you’re steadily back into it.

“If you don’t train you’d drop behind the eight-ball and I couldn’t imagine doing that mid-season.

“However long it is you’re out, you’ve got to keep ticking over, keep mentally switched on. But looking after your health is more important than anything.”

A long suspension could be crippling for the Eagles and many other clubs of their ilk, as Thackeray will know given his day job in finance.

“There’s talk of businesses going under. If fans aren’t turning up to games then the club isn’t going to get that income,” he admitted.

“Even down to the sponsors, I’m not sure what happens with those; if there’s no games does the sponsorship money still come in or not. It’s a worrying time for small businesses, and for everyone.”