THE Dragons squad are on a day off today ahead of their planned return to action in the Guinness PRO14 – but Sunday’s fixture at the Ospreys hinges on the results of tests for coronavirus.

Summer signing Jamie Roberts has been placed in isolation since receiving a positive test last Friday.

The rest of the squad, who tested negative last week, were told on Monday and were all tested yesterday with the results due today.

Those results arrive any time from morning to late evening, so an announcement from the Welsh Rugby Union-owned Dragons could come on Thursday.

At the moment, it is business as usual with the Dragons and Ospreys preparing for Sunday’s game, which follows Saturday’s derby between the Scarlets and Cardiff Blues in Llanelli.

South Wales Argus:

Dean Ryan’s squad have stuck with the planned schedule of Wednesday off before returning on Thursday with the team announced on Friday.

The fixture will go-ahead if there is a clean bill of health but will be in doubt if there are a number of positives in what is the first test for the PRO14.

The cross-border league is returning with derby games and will finish with semi-finals – with Edinburgh set to face either Leinster or Ulster. The 2020/21 season is scheduled to start in October.

Dragons director of rugby Ryan, speaking before the news of Roberts’ positive test was announced, is hungry for action after being sidelined since the March defeat to Benetton in Newport.

“It’s ultimately a relief to be starting up again,” said Ryan. “We spent a long period, if you go back to the early days when we came back to training, with no guarantees about when the start was.

“Running the same session eight times with groups of six wasn’t much fun.

“In the last couple of weeks we have got to the stage when sessions resemble more of what we are used to and therefore the intensity is more practicable.

“Everyone now just wants to play. It has been a really strange time and Sunday will be a different and new challenge as well.

“We will all have watched the English Premiership and empty stadiums. We have got to go through a new experience and keep developing ourselves.”

The Dragons face the Ospreys and then host the Scarlets before taking on Bristol in the quarter-finals of the European Challenge Cup on September 18.

New signings Nick Tompkins, Jonah Holmes and Joe Maksymiw are in the mix for selection if this weekend’s game gets the green light.

South Wales Argus:

“We’ve had a lot thrown at us the last four or five months,” he added. “Relief is the main feeling. Let’s get out on the field, let’s see where we are.

“We have integrated some new players and hopefully over the coming weeks we will get sight of those.

“We’ve also got a quarter-final down the road so how we approach these games as a stepping-stone towards that is also crucial.”