Hibs boss Jack Ross hits out at lack of clarity over Alex Gogic coronavirus testing saga

Hibs boss Jack Ross was left vexed after one of his players had an anomaly in their coronavirus tests.

Hibs head coach Jack Ross has criticised the length of time it took the club to get clarity over training guidelines following midfielder Alex Gogic's “false positive” Covid-19 test.

The Easter Road club's preparations for Sunday’s 1-0 defeat by Aberdeen were thrown into disarray late on Friday when the Cypriot’s results required further examination, forcing training to be put on hold and further advice required from the Scottish football authorities.

Gogic subsequently provided two negative tests – but even still, was instructed to self-isolate for ten days – and Ross was taken aback by how long it took Hibs to get a response on whether they could continue training, revealing that in the end it was the club who made the final call not to convene the day before the key clash with the Dons in Edinburgh.

Insisting he did not want to use the situation as an excuse for losing 1-0 to Derek McInnes’ outfit, who prevailed thanks to a 39th-minutes penalty from Lewis Ferguson, Ross said: “We had the disrupted preparation, we didn’t train on Saturday and then we lost a really important player - but that’s not the reason we lost the game.

“I always try and be quite pragmatic about things and take a step back. I find it slightly difficult to comprehend as to why.

“I don’t think it would be the case for anybody in any other profession that they wouldn’t be able to go to their work, having had a negative NHS Covid test.

“The rules are there. What I will say is that there are some big games coming up in Scotland soon. If there is a recurrence of this and a player with two negative tests comes out of the game, then it will be interesting to see the fall out from that if that was to happen.

Explaining the background to what happened once Gogic test was given a red flag, Ross continued: “We have test privately, we do that. He had one test that came back and meant we had to retest him. He was re-tested privately and through the NHS, which is the guidelines, and both returned negative.

“His first test result was at a level that he was never infectious.

“I have a player who was never infectious who had two negative tests that can’t play. I’m not an expert in it and I’m only going by the facts and I’m trying to stick by the facts.

“I don’t think there should be more leeway, but I would imagine that these guidelines were maybe put in place at a different stage of the lockdown for the general public. So when we spoke about football being afforded special privileges to return to work, we had to acknowledge that was the case because we were able to return to training at a very different stage in everyone else’s life. Now I think we’re at a different stage so I can’t quite comprehend how every other person returning test results like that would be free to go to their work. This is what it is, it’s his work, not only at club football but at international football and at the moment he’s not going to be able to do that.

“It took us a long time to get answers to whether we could train, what we could do, what happens to the player etc.”

When asked to expand on the guidance from the Scottish Football Association, Ross said: “Longer than it should in my opinion. Late afternoon on Friday we found out, 10:30 on Friday evening I still did not know whether i could train on Saturday. I think that's a long time to get an answer on a pretty straightforward question. I think I'm being fair to be critical in that respect.

Ross also revealed that Hibs made the final call themselves.

“We never really got clarity on it, we made the decision ourselves,” added Ross. “We got a recommendation that perhaps we shouldn't, but that was not definitive. We made the decision as a club and I made the decision as a manager. They gave some guidance that said you may be able to train in the afternoon but I think that perhaps underestimates the complexities in doing that. It's not as simple as just giving the boys a whistle and they all appear on the pitch so we made the decision not to train and that was the right decision because we wouldn't have had the go ahead to do so.”