Banned.

It appears no rugby or any other sport for that matter will be played in Ireland until September at the very earliest following a government announcement today regarding gatherings.

A ban on mass gatherings has been in place in Ireland since 24 March, with an update expected on May 5 and but today it was confirmed that ‘licenced events’ of over 5000 people, which include matches, concerts and festivals, will not be allowed to take place.

The Irish government said that this was decided “taking account of the impacts on the integrity of the licensing process in the short-term due to restrictions on stakeholder involvement”.

Ireland are currently scheduled to play the Wallabies in Australia this summer but that trip is unlikely due to ongoing travel restrictions. And if that happens Ireland will not be a situation to replace those games this summer with home games.

The PRO14 meanwhile is currently suspended with a number of Irish stakeholders last week calling for inter-provincial games to be arranged in order to get the provinces back playing – but today’s announcement rules that out.

With the way things are going, we probably won’t see any rugby in Ireland, or anywhere else for quite some time.

But at the end of the day, it’s all about staying safe right now and staying at home.