Broncos to break swine flu quarantine

Brisbane Broncos players will ignore health warnings about swine flu and break quarantine to train today after the NRL insisted tonight's match against the Bulldogs at Suncorp Stadium go ahead.

Despite yesterday being confirmed as the second member of the Queensland State of Origin side to have the H1N1 virus, Brisbane fullback Karmichael Hunt will play, but teammate Antonio Winterstein is in doubt after displaying swine flu symptoms and is awaiting the results of tests.

Some players, who had shown no swine flu symptons, reported becoming ill from the effects of Tamiflu.

Brisbane chief executive Bruno Cullen told NRL boss David Gallop last night the Broncos would play after a dramatic and unprecedented few hours in which they had initially told the governing body they would not field a team, citing concerns from club medical staff that players' safety would be at risk as they had not trained all week.

"The game is on," he said. "We initially told them that our medical advice was that we wouldn't play. But we talked to the coaching staff and the players, and decided it was in the best interests of everyone that we go ahead."

Gallop said it was possible the Broncos could have forfeited the match after the club emailed sponsors advising that they would not be playing.

Most of Brisbane's first-grade and Toyota Cup squads have been in isolation since Tuesday night and were not due to come out of quarantine until 10pm tonight, exactly three days after they began courses of Tamiflu.

But Queensland Health, in advising the NRL, yesterday backtracked on its hitherto strict 72-hour quarantine policy and approved the 7.35pm top-grade and 5.20pm Toyota Cup kick-offs, with the state's chief medical officer, Jeannette Young, saying: "Plus or minus a few hours doesn't matter."

Having followed the quarantine instructions by keeping more than 50 players and staff at home this week, the Broncos were furious at the newly declared flexibility and declared they would now ignore swine flu quarantine policy and treat it like regular influenza. They had earlier requested the match be switched to Sunday.

"We are just ignoring that from now on, if people can be that flexible," Cullen said. "It's called swine flu - we're just going to call it the flu from now on.

"If someone gets the flu, we'll treat them the way we normally do. We'll send them home, we'll treat them, and when they're ready to come back and play, we'll play them."

"As far as they we're concerned, it was OK to play. That was in complete contrast to the advice we received earlier this week. We did everything we were told to do under that advice, and now we've been put in a very difficult situation."

Brisbane coach Ivan Henjak will today begin the mockery of following the Queensland Health policy by assembling players from his senior and Under-20s squads for their first full training run this week.

The players and staff would also attend the funeral of the long-time recruitment manager Cyril Connell at 1.30pm, Cullen said.

Origin players Darren Lockyer, Israel Folau, Justin Hodges, Sam Thaiday and Peter Wallace had a training session yesterday after coming out of their 72-hour quarantine. They were joined only by stood-down prop Joel Clinton, young fullback Josh Hoffman and a member of the support staff, who were not in Melbourne last Friday.

"What we're disappointed with is we've been denied the opportunity to prepare properly and, at the last minute, the advice that we were prepared to follow to the letter of the law has just turned around," Cullen said.

"Seventy-two hours can be turned around and it's only 27, I suppose.

"We weren't even allowed to train this afternoon. The preparation has been terrible ... We'll probably try and get the lads together from both sides to have a light run just to recognise each other again."

Ironically, Hunt is due to end his quarantine period at 10am, and would therefore have been one of only a handful or so Brisbane players clear to play under the 72-hour guidelines. It is likely he will play tonight, only a day after being diagnosed with swine flu.

The NRL yesterday stood by its decision to proceed with the top-of-the-table round-14 clash.

"We realise this creates a difficulty for the Broncos in terms of preparation time," NRL chief operating officer Graham Annesley said.

"[But] the disruptions around rescheduling the match would also be significant to the preparation of the other team, to the venue, to the fans, government infrastructure, the sponsors and the broadcasters."

-By CHRIS BARRETT and BRAD WALTER, Sydney Morning Herald