Downsizing: Welsh boss outlines radical injury remedy
Welsh rugby boss Gareth Davies believes limiting substitutions and making players see out the full 80 minutes could limit the game’s increasingly worrying injury rate.
Northern rugby, now in full swing, has been rocked by ongoing injury issues.
An increased focus on head injuries has seen rules tightened.
World Rugby will consider proposals next March, including one to reduce the number of substitutions to prevent teams from making mass replacements in the final 20 minutes, the point at which players used to tire.
Davies, the former Wales and Lions fly-half who is now chairman of the Welsh union and is on World Rugby’s council, sees merit in that, believing such a move would see a reduction in the size of players and that would help the ongoing injury crisis.
‘‘Rugby used to be a game for all shapes and sizes and we are moving away from that,’’ Davies told The Guardian.
‘‘As a fly-half, part of my job was to outfox a wing forward who spent the game chasing you, but now after 50-odd minutes a whole new team come on.
‘‘I am not sure what law changes can achieve. There is an experimental one being conducted now in the tackle but the only way I can see it is guys having to play for the full 80 minutes.
‘‘That would force them to shed a few stone: players are physical specimens now and if it carries on they will get even bigger and stronger.
‘‘It will certainly not get any better. When I played, no one tore biceps of hamstrings off the bone. No one had stinger injuries and what is happening is a player’s muscular set-up is not natural while your ligaments and bone structure remain the same. It is the load that causes the problems.
‘‘Players are bigger than their bodies are designed for them to be and a lot of the injuries are because of that, not just because of the physical demands of the game.
‘‘If players have to run for 80 minutes, they will have to become lighter and get closer to their natural body weight and there is a chance of opening up the game. It is worth looking at because many are now conditioned to play for only 50 minutes.’’
This week Irish great Brian O’Driscoll accused rugby of ‘‘going soft’’ over the increased focus on policing tackle situations.
And World Rugby has just enlisted some of the game’s top defence coaches to consider how tackle technique can further reduce the risk of injury.
The specialist group reviewed videos that demonstrated the most common head-injury scenarios and considered techniques that lead to an injury and those that protected the head.