Huddersfield Giants boss Ian Watson admits his side will have players missing for France trip due to rules

With the news of the French government deciding that unvaccinated sportsmen cannot enter the country, it has thrown up a number of questions for Super League teams.

One of those teams is the Huddersfield Giants, whose head coach Ian Watson revealed to BBC Radio Leeds that his side will be missing a few players when they travel to France to face Toulouse on 12 February.

“We’ve got quite a few that will miss out, we are up to around 83% vaccinated which is good but we would have liked to go with a full-strength team, so there will be players missing,” Watson told BBC Radio Leeds.

“What we don’t want is to go there with unvaccinated players and then two weeks later they change the rules that unvaccinated players are allowed to go.

“It’s out of our hands and it’s something we can’t control – they make the rules over who can go into France and we’re playing in a European Super League.”

The former Salford Red Devils head coach was also keen to stress that his ball is firmly in the players’ choice court when it comes to the jab.

“For me, it’s choice and everything comes down to opinions and everyone deserves the choice of whether or not they get the vaccine.

“People shouldn’t push their opinion on each other – we would like certain people to be vaccinated but people have strong beliefs.

“If the government says they can’t play sport unless they’re vaccinated like in France then that’s a totally different kettle of fish and people have to make a decision to make about how badly they want to play or do that job.”