While it had done well to limit the virus’ impact early in the ANZ Premiership, it has worked its way through half the squad this week.
Coach Reinga Bloxham confirmed five players in the team had tested positive for the virus this week.
It had prompted to the team to request a postponement of its games against the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic, scheduled for tomorrow and Monday.
That request has been granted, as the team met the threshold which requires teams to have four or more players unavailable.
In a sense that works out well.
The team is able to postpone its games to time when it will have those players back, rather than play short-handed. That has potential to cause problems next weekend.
The first case developed on Tuesday and the others followed within 24 hours.
Beyond the seven-day isolation period, there was a stringent five-phase set of return-to-play protocols set by the ANZ Premiership.
That had potential to leave the players impacted unable to play next Sunday against the Mainland Tactix.
"I don’t know which scenario is better or worse," Bloxham said.
"I think when we had a couple, like when we had Te Huinga Reo [Selby-Rickit] and Ali [Wilshier], at least you can manage bringing people in.
"To have five of them hit at once, it just makes it hard at the other end. There’s definitely pros about it, because they’re all in isolation now [at the same time]. But then the bad side of it is that you have to manage them, to make sure they can return safely.
"It’s a tricky one, to be fair. I think that’s the piece that’s going to be hard at the other end of it.
"We’ll have a match coming up and we’re going to see who, if anyone, will be available to play."
The healthy players were continuing to do what they could, although team training had been called off this week.
The Steel has played six games and had several rescheduled, due to other teams’ postponements.
There are no dates yet for this weekend’s delayed matches.
