from Monday 29 March flag teams in England will be able to resume practice at BAFA Stage 4, which allows for the resumption of non-contact practice – as was in place prior to our most recent lockdown. We will be refreshing and reissuing our existing Stage 4 guidelines to update or expand on a number of points.

I can also confirm that contact teams in England will also be able to return to activity from Monday 29 March at BAFA Stage 5. This is comprised of four steps of gradually increasing contact duration and activity, on top of unlimited non-contact practice time. Contact duration and activity starts with 20 minutes and 1v1 and 2v1 blocking and tackling and will increase to 30 minutes and team-level activity.

We know that many contact teams across England will be moving at a different pace due to challenges with facilities, differing risk appetites, or how many weekly sessions they can deliver initially. With this in mind, our Stage 5 guidance will allow coaching staff some flexibility to use their own judgement at the speed at which their teams move through each step.

Our guidance recommends a two-week period for each step of Stage 5 for contact teams, but as a minimum we expect teams to hold at least two practice sessions at each stage before moving to the next. This will allow teams who may not immediately have access to facilities to ‘catch up’ later on with additional sessions, as well as allowing teams who run more than one session a week to progress to stage 5d a little earlier. Early completion of Stage 5 does not mean a return to full contact practice, however. This will not be permitted by BAFA until we move to Stage 6 which we hope will be possible from 24 May onwards.

For both flag and contact teams, all previous measures to protect participants from Covid-19 must be maintained. As a reminder this includes strong hand and equipment hygiene, distancing when not active and record keeping for track and trace purposes. National Leagues teams must also have a named and trained Club Covid-19 officer with their details and certification uploaded to the Go!Membership system along with an up-to-date risk assessment. University contact teams should ensure they work with the Sports or Athletic Union at their institution to meet their own specific return to play and risk assessment requirements.

The limit of 30 participants per wholly separate group per half pitch also remains in place for flag, and for contact in steps 5a-5c.