Richard Loe: Injuries mean it's not 'super' at all

It's hard to know why so many injuries are blighting the Super 14 at the moment - it's not like the game is any faster or more brutal or demanding than it has been.

It might be just one of those cycles that hits every now and then but it is certainly having an effect with very few of the Super 14 games being "super" at all.

There're a lot of All Blacks injured and the cynic in me says that they've had too much rest and recreation. I spoke to Brad Thorn after the end-of-year tour last year and he told me it was an easy tour because of the numbers of players taken and the fact that few people had to back up week to week.

Makes you wonder, yet again, whether our top players are getting enough top rugby but, in all seriousness, I don't think we can blame player welfare, as Graham Henry likes to call it, for the run of injuries.

I heard another theory that, with the lack of depth and the number of rookie or inexperienced Super 14 players around right now, some players were still struggling to cope with the pace, the strength and the physical collisions.

All teams have been affected to some degree but perhaps the worst has been the Crusaders. I note that poor old Colin Slade, who has been playing first five all year, was suddenly plonked on the wing last night. I know he has played fullback in his young career but I don't think he has played wing before.

Maybe it is the rookie factor - certainly the demands the modern game and the new rules place on players are greater than ever and the breakdown is a key area. That's where Richie McCaw's knee injury took place and I heard Colin Meads having a go at the way players are allowed to take out opponents even when they don't have the ball.

The Tree said that wouldn't have been allowed in his day as there was a very good rule which said you couldn't play the man without the ball - and I agree. Meads also said that, even if the players came "through the gate", the "gates" should be left on the farm. Again, I agree.

If we are so concerned about player welfare, why do we play a game where players can be taken out even without the ball?

Injuries are one thing but it was a new term - "campaign management" - that also interested me. I heard it in the wake of the Blues' terrible stuffing by the Bulls a few weeks ago, when coach Pat Lam left All Black prop Tony Woodcock on the bench for a match where it seemed he should have been the first one selected.

The campaign management thing surfaced after this defeat and it has an interesting translation: expected to lose.

The Bulls scored 59 points - 59! - and the Blues 26 in this match. In a country like South Africa, you don't send out a team where some in that side sense that you expect them to lose; that you are keeping your powder dry for other weekends. Anyone who has played rugby knows that, psychologically, you are sending a message that it is okay to lose. The Blues did lose - boy, did they.

The Bulls are a good side this year and maybe Woodcock was carrying an injury - but he played, and well, in the next-up win against the Stormers.

The Blues came away with a good points haul from their South African tour so they can be pleased and talk "campaign management" till the cows come home.

Would they have lost to the Stormers if Woodcock and other first-teamers had played against the Bulls? We'll never know. For me, you select your best side and, even if you don't win, you might get close enough to pick up a bonus point.

That bonus point might make the difference when it comes to making the playoffs. It's like the South Africans themselves - they were woeful when they were failing to cope with the quota of black players they had to field.

Now they have dealt with that and gained experience, their top sides are playing dangerously well. So, injuries or "campaign management", I don't think it bodes well for New Zealand teams this year. Time will tell.