Winter sports injuries cost $2 million

OUCH: There were 554 rugby injury claims last year for Wairarapa, as opposed to 252 football claims.

Rugby injuries across Wairarapa far outnumber football injuries with taxpayers forking out almost $2 million on winter sport injury rehabilitation claims in the past two years, figures show.

Often perceived as a safer sport, football injuries in Wairarapa resulted in 252 ACC claims last year at a cost of $269,450, compared with 554 rugby injury claims at $730,504.

The top injury categories for football and rugby were soft tissue injuries (such as strains, sprains, or contusions), fractures or dislocations, lacerations, punctures, or stings, dental injuries and concussion or brain injuries.

Nationally, football caused 38,487 injury claims last year costing $28.5 million as opposed to rugby with 64,280 claims at $67.1 million.

Excitement is building ahead of the Fifa World Cup kick-off this week with local clubs hoping it generates a spike in player numbers.

Although more younger players turn to football than rugby, the game has about 115,000 registered players nationwide across all age groups, compared with rugby with more than 148,000.

Fifa has designed a football injury prevention programme called Fifa 11+, which has been rolled out in New Zealand in conjunction with New Zealand Football.

The extensive warm-up programme aims to reduce injuries in players aged 14 years and over, although it is up to individual clubs to take it on board.

Former Wairarapa United coach Phil Keinzley said his teams suffered a lot of ankle injuries at training with "poor training facilities" at Howard Booth Park in Carterton where the ground was "rough as anything".

"That's something that's quite unique to our area.

"We probably have lost more players to ankle injuries than any other injury."

The ground suffered from a lack of rolling and undersowing because the council did not have money to maintain it, he said.

All of the club's staff directly involved with the team had done level 2 coaching, with a first aid component.

Registered football player numbers across Wairarapa were about equal with rugby and events such as the Fifa World Cup helped to boost the game's profile and increase youth player numbers, he said.

Physiotherapist Hamish Aston said the main injuries he dealt with were ankle injuries from tackling, hamstring strains, and the occasional knee injury.

Early in the season it was more common to see shin splint injuries from running on hard ground, and as the ground got muddier more players were prone to tired muscles.

He was seeing more elite junior players in the 12-16 year old age group who were "over-worked and over-trained", but it was hard to predict what impact their injuries would have on their sporting future. "They've got growing bodies and they're doing almost professional workloads and they've got to do their school work and everything on top of that."APNZ