Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

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fleabane
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Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by fleabane »

From today’s Guardian


English rugby’s leading players and administrators are urging World Rugby to introduce stricter sanctions for high tackles following the release of officially collated injury statistics for the 2017-18 season. While there has been a small drop in the number of concussions, the severity of injuries in top-level English rugby is on the rise.

Based on the latest findings of the Professional Game Action Plan on Player Injuries, a joint collaboration between the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Players’ Association, the English authorities want World Rugby to introduce greater clarity around the legal height of the tackle and believe referees should take a tougher stance. “If there is a desire to change player behaviour to reduce the risk of concussion, we believe that the threshold for receiving a card for a high-tackle is currently too high,” stated the report.

Leigh Halfpenny to miss Six Nations start with concussion symptoms

Dr Simon Kemp, the RFU’s medical services director, also suggested further “significant changes” to the laws of the game may be required after the statistics revealed the highest ‘burden of match injury’ (a combination of injury incidence and their severity) since 2002. “There is strong evidence that while the likelihood of injury in the professional game appears to be stable, the increase in injury severity we are seeing means the overall burden of injury is increasing,” said Kemp. “The data suggests more significant changes to the game might be needed to reverse these trends.”

Action has already been taken to reduce the startlingly high rates of injury suffered by players training with England. The severity and number of injuries combined were five times above the domestic average last year and Nigel Melville, the RFU’s acting chief executive, says Eddie Jones’s regime has been the subject of some concern. “We did recognise a problem and we have discussed it at the Professional Game Board,” said Melville. “International players train at greater intensity, so we’re trying to manage players better as they transition from one environment to another. We think that is starting to show some positive signs.”

Overall the average severity of match injuries – ie the length of time it takes to return to play for 2017-18 – has risen to 37 days, the second consecutive season the figure has been above its expected upper limit. Encouragingly, there was a small reduction in concussions compared with 2016-17, with one fewer concussion every eight games. However, the mean severity of medically diagnosed match concussions was 19 days, the second successive year this figure has increased. In six cases players took more than 84 days to return to play following concussion.

For the third consecutive year concussion also emerged as the most common injury, followed by hamstring injuries. Concussion accounted for 18% of all injuries to the ball carrier and 37% of all injuries to the tackler, highlighting the tackle as the key area for the game to consider. The 2017-18 season is the first that the incidence of all injuries was greater for the tackler than the ball carrier, with 52% of all match injuries being associated with the tackle.

No other union in the world has collated such detailed data over such a length of time. Maintenance of artificial pitches are also set to become part of Premiership minimum standards criteria based on evidence showing that injuries sustained on an artificial surface tend to be more severe than those which occur on grass.

Richard Bryan, rugby director at the RPA, believes it is now “essential” the sport acts on the key findings in the latest report. “Given how the game has evolved over the past decade, the Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project is now more important than ever,” said Bryan. “We are committed to addressing the issues raised in this report and must continue to adapt as a sport to ensure we are protecting the welfare of our players.”
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fleabane
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by fleabane »

From today’s Times

The message from the RFU yesterday was admirably blunt. It came in the form of a 53-page report, a blizzard of graphs and statistics and, then, what appeared to be a clear conclusion: we are trying very hard to make professional rugby as safe as possible but we are not yet succeeding.

The RFU’s annual injury audit, entitled the Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project (PRISP), is a considerable piece of work. It logs every injury, its severity, how the injury happened and plenty more information besides. No other union in the world measures the risk in the professional game as accurately or diligently as the RFU.

The information in the report yesterday was — let’s face it — peppered with worrying news. As the sport’s governing body in England, the promoters of rugby and guardians of the future of the game, it might therefore have been tempting to sugarcoat it. Or brush it as far under the carpet as possible.

How commendable that, instead, the message was: yes, we’ve got a problem. And more than that: we can’t solve it on our own.

No one attempted to say: “It’s not that bad, don’t worry.” There were some positive elements in the report, such as the fact that the number of concussions last season dropped, but the RFU and its partners in the annual audit, the Rugby Players’ Association and Premier Rugby, barely focused on this.


The fall in concussions equates to one fewer such injury every eight games. This could have been the message: look, everything we are doing is starting to work. Instead the message was: the severity of our concussions, like the severity of injuries generally, has got worse.


Nigel Melville, 58, the interim RFU chief executive and a former England captain, called it “a global problem”. There were numerous suggestions and requests in the press conference that was called to discuss the report, for World Rugby, the global governing body, to lead the game to find a solution.

Yet it was more than a straight set of facts. Indeed, it felt as though the RFU was moving on to new ground.

The RFU has been the leader in a number of initiatives to make the game safer. Again, we could have talked about these yesterday, though they were only briefly touched upon. Instead, there came a very different message. Not: we think we’ve got it sorted. But: we need to think

Simon Kemp, the head medic in the RFU, could not have been clearer. He said that “significant changes to the game might be needed”. He called upon the game’s administrators “to think innovatively about how the laws of the game can prioritise player safety”.

In other words, he invited the game to find a new territory. At the moment, there is a study under way in the Championship Cup, a competition for the second-tier English clubs, about whether, if we lower the legal tackle height by about four inches, we can reduce the number of concussions.

By chipping away like this, we may gain some success, we may not. Kemp was suggesting that incremental gains may not now be enough. He was inviting the game to go further.

You can play this game at home, in the pub or in your rugby club. What may the game look like in five years’ time? How may it change to be better and safer?


The broader answer is that you would want more space on the field. I would start by bringing down the number of substitutions that can be made. I would also go straight to the interpretation of the laws at the breakdown: how can we get more bodies into the ruck and therefore create more space outside?

You may think that a weight limit per team could have a positive effect; it could depower a team, invite fewer blood-and-thunder collisions and more stealth. Or you could just come to the same conclusions that another group of rugby fanatics made in England more than a century ago and decide to reduce the number of players on the field.

The message from the RFU yesterday was that the time had come for the professional game to begin to think like that. It is not only a game; it needs to happen. Significant changes. Innovation. Chipping away may not work.


World Rugby has long had a law review process in which it has gradually changed the game and nudged it in what it believes to be the best direction. The changes over recent years have tended to reflect the game’s need to market itself; the direction of change has been towards a sport that is easier to understand or that is more exciting to watch.

The message from PRISP and its partners yesterday was that the direction needs to change. The law review body needs some blue-sky thinking with the sole intention being safety. With the publishing of the PRISP report and all its unfortunate injury statistics, it was a bad news day, essentially, for rugby. If the game can heed the message, though, it could turn out to be the very opposite.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by fleabane »

More from today’s Times

English rugby’s head medical officer has called for the sport to consider significant law changes to make it safer after figures showed a record high in the number of serious injuries.

Simon Kemp’s demand for action came after the release of the RFU’s annual report on injuries in the English game, which showed their severity rising for the fourth year out of five across the club game and a big escalation in injuries during training sessions with Eddie Jones’s England team.

England’s injury statistics stayed stable when Stuart Lancaster was head coach for four years from 2011 but went up as soon as Jones, 58, took over after Lancaster was sacked in the aftermath of the 2015 World Cup.

Six times more days were missed due to training injuries last season than at any time under Lancaster, with players such as Beno Obano and Sam Underhill, the Bath forwards, ruled out for months. Jones introduced innovative methods such as judo sessions and has often spoken of the need to train at a greater intensity with England.

The report showed a small reduction in the number of concussions across the professional game in England last season but the severity of concussion injuries has gone up along with the seriousness of all injuries.


The average number of days that it now takes to recover from an injury in the professional game is 37, compared with 29 two years ago and 20 over the previous decade.


Kemp, the RFU medical services director, also said that referees needed to show more red and yellow cards for high tackles.

His call comes amid a dispute over whether rugby has gone soft because of some of the cards being shown for tackles. But Kemp, speaking on behalf of the RFU, said that the game needed to go even further.

“You are three times more likely to see a card for a deliberate knock-on than you are for a high tackle, currently, around the world,” he said. “We [the RFU] and World Rugby don’t believe that the sanction for yellow and red cards, alone, occurs frequently enough to be likely to change player behaviour. If the [sanction for] the high tackle is a stick, probably at the moment the stick isn’t used enough to change behaviour.”

The RFU’s annual injury audit is the most in-depth analysis in the world and the governing body is now using its evidence to put pressure on World Rugby to change the game so that it is safer for the players.

“The game needs to come together and develop a consistent global approach,” Nigel Melville, the interim chief executive of the RFU, said. “We need World Rugby to lead on this. We are ready and willing to work with World Rugby.”

The game has long been engaged in a process of reviewing its laws but the RFU believes that it is now time to go beyond the normal tweaks.

It is the RFU’s belief, Kemp said, that World Rugby and all constituent parts of the game now needed “to think innovatively about how the laws of the game can prioritise player safety”.

He added: “This would be outside the ongoing law review process with a focus on thinking innovatively on how the laws of the game can prioritise safety. One would expect any innovative look at law design to focus on the tackle and the ruck. We need to progress and accelerate that work.”

The cup competition in the Greene King IPA Championship, the second tier, is trialling making tackle height the level of the nipple rather than the shoulder, to reduce head-injury risk.

“There is strong evidence that while the likelihood of injury in the professional game appears stable, the increase in injury severity means the overall burden of injury is increasing,” Kemp said. “The data suggests more significant changes to the game might be needed to reverse these trends.”

Melville said: “This is a global problem. We can’t change the laws, World Rugby can.”
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by BFG »

Kemp is right about the deliberate knock-on.
The original design of the laws are fine though if enforced properly.
At present with the creation of a deliberate knock-on law it is a prime example of poor law design which has evolved from relaxed officiating in my opinion, it actually encourages players to come closer together on a straight and flat line which has now also evolved into forward passes being accepted.
The entire scenario all goes back to the failure to strictly enforce the defensive offside line which encourages more head on play, defenders being allowed to rush with a high line automatically reduces thinking/reaction time for attackers which will also have an impact on the breakdown for all of the same reasons.
Enforcing offside properly will encourage more depth and width which will automatically bring more side on contact instead of head on.
We've seen first hand at Tigers how skilled intelligent attacking from depth in trying to play around contact can struggle in the modern game, it's being stifled by relaxed officiating and the resulting poor law designs and it relates to so much in my opinion.
It even encourages bigger players to succeed which in turn also increases impacts.
Even the scum is affected by changing the origins, by not making both hookers hook they actually encourage props to collapse and buy a penalty as believe me when I say that the four props won't collapse if their two mates hooking legs are at risk of being trapped, that's exactly what a prop was originally supposed to be!
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by Robespierre »

One shocking statistic here in France is that during the last year, four players have died due to injuries sustained having been tackled. I've not looked whether they were due to poor head positioning in the tackle or excessive violence of the tackler. I understand that Bernard Laporte, the head of the Fédération Française de Rugby is leading an enquiry into the matter.
What is sure is that fewer parents will be encouraging their sons to take up the sport.
Measures need to be taken by World Rugby, pretty damn quick to resolve this serious problem.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by chewbacca »

Worrying indeed. I love the game but it is becoming unsustainable. Bigger faster players, lax officiating all contribute. Others have suggested changing the laws to produce a more aerobic game and consequently less bulky players is the way forward. Be interesting to see how World Rugby responds.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by Scuttle »

I increasingly feel one of the areas that could change for the better is when a player is tackled, held up, ball unplayable, leading to a turnover. As I understand it this is on the basis that the tackled player is the one with the ball and hence the responsibility for keeping the game moving; the question for me is does this rule encourage the tackler to go in high in order to take man and ball and stop the offload; I think it does and so we see examples of actual or potential head/shoulder to head contact.

I see the logic of making the tackled player responsible for making the ball available but I now wonder if the unintended consequence of a higher contact area should be looked at. I wonder if things would improve if the rules changed so that the advantage went to the attacking team or the team based on momentum/forward movement and not whether the ball is held up or not. It may force the tackle lower so the defender can get forward momentum (at the moment they just tend to stand still holding the tackled player up). It might also have the added bonus of the tackled player having their arms more free to offload and thus a more exciting game. I am sure there will be unintended consequences with this too but it has got me thinking.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by jgriffin »

Agree with all the suggestions and would add my bugbear, the 'breakdown' previously known as the tackle. Go back to the original concept of dual release, ball secured by driving over with the only contact allowed being engagement using grip. Upright snuffing of ball declared dead ball, put in to attackers. Not just policing offside, police it back 5m or more. And I agree with the total weight limit idea though how it would work in practice, no idea. Subs to include two utility front rows and reduce to 6 total. Scrums to engage old style, both hoppers can hook, straight put in enforced. Tackle line linking armpits in neon on every shirt.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by ellis9 »

jgriffin wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:09 am Agree with all the suggestions and would add my bugbear, the 'breakdown' previously known as the tackle. Go back to the original concept of dual release, ball secured by driving over with the only contact allowed being engagement using grip. Upright snuffing of ball declared dead ball, put in to attackers. Not just policing offside, police it back 5m or more. And I agree with the total weight limit idea though how it would work in practice, no idea. Subs to include two utility front rows and reduce to 6 total. Scrums to engage old style, both hoppers can hook, straight put in enforced. Tackle line linking armpits in neon on every shirt.
Neon tackle line on shirts?

Sorry but that's just way over the top.

Also, a 5 metre offside line means the two backlines are further away from each other. Therefore, the contact would be harder as more momentum can be built up.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by LE18 »

Increase yellow card time to 15/20 mins for high tackle. Move Offside Lines back to 5 mts at breakdown, also move to 10 at scrum time.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by jgriffin »

ellis9 wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:31 am
jgriffin wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:09 am Agree with all the suggestions and would add my bugbear, the 'breakdown' previously known as the tackle. Go back to the original concept of dual release, ball secured by driving over with the only contact allowed being engagement using grip. Upright snuffing of ball declared dead ball, put in to attackers. Not just policing offside, police it back 5m or more. And I agree with the total weight limit idea though how it would work in practice, no idea. Subs to include two utility front rows and reduce to 6 total. Scrums to engage old style, both hoppers can hook, straight put in enforced. Tackle line linking armpits in neon on every shirt.
Neon tackle line on shirts?

Sorry but that's just way over the top.

Also, a 5 metre offside line means the two backlines are further away from each other. Therefore, the contact would be harder as more momentum can be built up.
Tackle line already trialling, neon to make it obvious, and if you read the argument against bulking up it is the proximity of lines that is thought to be an issue. Distance gives attacks time to develop and actually depowers a rush defence, funny how that seemed to work OK back in the old days before RL defence emerged.......if you want me to go through the argument I will
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by drc_007 »

How about no substitutions, only replacements for injuries. Anyone who goes off injured has to sit out the next weeks game.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by chewbacca »

drc_007 wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:14 pm How about no substitutions, only replacements for injuries. Anyone who goes off injured has to sit out the next weeks game.
I think that was the crux of the 'more aerobic' approach. To last 80 mins players would need to be less bulky. As a return to previous rules we could also cut out the scrambling around on the ground for the ball and require players to stay on their feet and drive over and control it with their feet , cut out lifting at the line out too.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by ellis9 »

jgriffin wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:50 pm
ellis9 wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:31 am
jgriffin wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:09 am Agree with all the suggestions and would add my bugbear, the 'breakdown' previously known as the tackle. Go back to the original concept of dual release, ball secured by driving over with the only contact allowed being engagement using grip. Upright snuffing of ball declared dead ball, put in to attackers. Not just policing offside, police it back 5m or more. And I agree with the total weight limit idea though how it would work in practice, no idea. Subs to include two utility front rows and reduce to 6 total. Scrums to engage old style, both hoppers can hook, straight put in enforced. Tackle line linking armpits in neon on every shirt.
Neon tackle line on shirts?

Sorry but that's just way over the top.

Also, a 5 metre offside line means the two backlines are further away from each other. Therefore, the contact would be harder as more momentum can be built up.
Tackle line already trialling, neon to make it obvious, and if you read the argument against bulking up it is the proximity of lines that is thought to be an issue. Distance gives attacks time to develop and actually depowers a rush defence, funny how that seemed to work OK back in the old days before RL defence emerged.......if you want me to go through the argument I will
So you're saying that if the backlines were even further apart from each other as they are now, you'd see Tigers use Manu as a creative player more so than using him to run into the opposition?
Sorry, I don't buy that. He'd have even more yardage to build up pace to smash his way through the defence, which would be great to see but not what your idea is planned to do.
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Re: Severity of injuries and high tackles (official figures)

Post by Big Dai »

Are high tackles responsible for all concussion injuries? Low tackles (Chop tackles) where the knee impinges on the head are equally dangerous. Likewise head to hip. Likewise head to head in a friendly fire double tackle.

In the amateur era this was possibly less of a problem as players were not as massive.

I fear the professional era has rendered the game as I knew it unsustainable!
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