Here’s an article from The New Zealand Herald about a concern in the world-wide rugby community – the seriousness and high number of injuries among professional players. The players are bigger, faster, and stronger, with high velocity collisions in tackle and ball-winning situations (and only very light pads for the shoulders). It’s fantastic to watch, but taking a high toll on players.
Is rugby becoming a brutal game? – 03 Oct 2006 – Sport
More than 2,000 injuries were recorded by Premiership clubs over the two seasons between 2002 and 2004; or, to put it another way, 92 injuries per team per campaign.
At the same time, there were 263 injuries affecting players on England business – the Test side, the second-stringA side, the Under-21s and the seven-a-side team – causing a total of 5,161 days of absence.
On average, one in four players from each club was under treatment, or undergoing rehabilitation, every day of every week during the course of the study; indeed, each player spent 19 per cent of the calendar year injured.
Meanwhile, a player on international duty was shown to have a 29 per cent chance of picking up a knock sufficiently serious to incapacitate him for a fortnight.
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