Taxpayers feel pain of increasing rugby injuries

Robin Brooke thinks player welfare lags. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Rugby injuries are costing the country millions of dollars, but are generally less serious than they used to be.

In the past three years, the bill for injuries has been $105 million, with the increasing cost blamed on growing player numbers.

But Accident Compensation Corporation figures show there are fewer moderate to serious spinal injuries since the introduction of safety campaigns targeting tackles and scrums.

Even so, former All Black doctor John Mayhew wants more research and said players should be warned of the health consequences before considering careers as professionals.

"If the rugby field was a factory it would be closed down through OSH and ACC," said Dr Mayhew. "These days you've got big, strong and fast players colliding at very high speed for many weeks of the year."

One study reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found eight to 12 professional rugby players were forced to retire from the game each year through injury.

Twenty-five per cent of England's leading players were out of action through injury and 60 per cent of top professional players were allegedly being coerced by their clubs to play when not fit. The average length of injury was 18 days.

Hookers and centres were the most vulnerable to injury, followed by openside flankers and locks.

A study of the Wallabies between 1994 and 2000 found at least one player was seriously injured in every one of the 73 test matches Australia played in that period.

Locks were the most frequently injured followed by the number eight. Halfbacks were the most likely to get through a match unscathed while first five-eighths were the most injury-prone Wallaby backs.

Medical director of the New Zealand Rugby Union Dr Steve Targett said there was no consistency in the injury studies and one done here would probably give different results.

He said there had not been a surge in injuries to leading players, despite an intense schedule.

But he said of the British study: "With my tongue in cheek you could say the English game is different and when you're only using the forwards and number 10 maybe it's not surprising hookers over there get injured.

"When there's so much kicking from number 10 you are going to see different types of play, which might result in different injury patterns."

Dr Targett said the union and ACC had placed a huge emphasis on injury prevention. The union's Rugby Smart programme has been adopted by other countries around the world.

An ACC spokeswoman said while the cost and number of injuries was going up, so was the number of registered players .

"NZRFU report a 6.9 per cent increase in 2004, a 6.3 per cent increase in 2005. The 2006 figures are yet to be finalised, but current indications point to another increase," she said.

Rugby injuries as a proportion of all ACC sports costs were also falling. She believed this was because of the RugbySmart injury prevention programme, which educated referees and coaches about key injury areas, such as scrums and tackles. The most common injuries are soft tissue injuries, such as strains or sprains.


Keep playing so you don't lose position

He's had a cracked eye-socket, his elbow reconstructed, his nose broken "three or four times" and his ankles done "five or six times".

But former All Black lock Robin Brooke thinks he got off lightly.

"It probably all sounds pretty bad but I think I got out without any major injuries," he said.

"Being a lock, the old ears have cauliflowered and are probably not what they should be."

Now a supermarket manager living in Tauranga with his wife and three children, Brooke, 39, has concerns for the next generation of players coming through.

"I believe the welfare of the players is not at the forefront for the people running the game," he said.

"I also think the coaches sometimes have more decision-making power over the players than the doctors do."

Brooke said it was "ingrained" in nearly all rugby players to carry on with injuries as they feared they would lose their positions.

It was a "no-brainer" that professional rugby players would carry some legacy of their playing days well after they had hung up their boots. "I run around with my kids and get about but sometimes you look at guys the same age who haven't played rugby and they move more freely."