Rugby: Curtailing injury an issue worth tackling

It's not likely to come as much of a shock to anyone that tackling is the danger point in rugby these days.

Almost 60 per cent of all injuries occur in the tackle, which is a good statistic to begin changing mindsets.

For older generations, scrummaging was always the place most feared. Serious injuries were all too common from collapsed scrums.

But new research by Ken Quarrie of the Auckland University of Technology shows that scrum safety has been dramatically improved since the introduction of controls where players have to crouch, touch and engage.

It's the desire to be more aggressive and destructive in the tackle that is pushing players towards the medical room.

In what must have been an extraordinarily painstaking process, Quarrie watched video footage from all 434 professional matches played in New Zealand between 2003 and 2005.

A colossal 140,249 tackles were made in those games and Quarrie analysed the lot.

Quite what that would do to a man's sanity is hard to tell but he managed to pick up some trends that show, even at the professional level, tackling technique is not as good as it should be.

The modern game has evolved to the point where no one really tackles around the legs any more. Coaches want their players, particularly their loose forwards, to be hitting the ball carrier in the midriff or higher - so they can wrap up the ball.

The higher you go, though, the more refined the technique and timing has to be as there are more hard bits with which a head can collide. The research found that the most injuries were sustained when the tackler's contact point was in the 'middle' of his opponent or higher and when the tackle came from the side or in front.

However, the highest rate of injuries per tackle were sustained when the execution was from behind.

The use of video analysis allowed researchers to identify where poor technique going into a tackle was a contributing factor to an injury occurring.

"Dropping the chin forward into the other player increased the risk of head and/or neck injury due to either direct impact to the head or hyperflexion of the cervical spine," says Quarrie.

More than 40 per cent of those types of injuries are caused by head-to-head player contact - the type that saw Luke McAlister break his cheekbone against the Wallabies.

Having such comprehensive data to review, the New Zealand Rugby Union is expected to look at ways it can improve education around the tackle. Extensive research into scrummaging a few years ago led to the introduction of the RugbySmart code where coaches at the grassroots level learn various basic foundation values that help make the game safer.

"Education measures that focus on teaching players to be aware of the location of other players as they move into the tackle situation may help reduce the risk of this type of injury," says Quarrie.

Ball carriers were at the highest risk for tackles to the head-neck region, whereas tacklers were most at risk when making low tackles. The impact of the tackle was the most common cause of injury, and the head was the most common site.

It won't please elite coaches to hear Quarrie's suggestion that one of the key ways to potentially reduce tackle-related injuries is to "teach ball carriers to go to ground immediately when they feel the weight of the tackler; that may be a means of reducing the risk of severe knee, lower leg and ankle injuries.

"The trade-off for players and coaches is that of gaining a metre or two of field position from a particular run versus having a player unavailable through injury for an extended period."