Rugby’s new crisis Austin Healey on growing injury toll
Poor decision making and tackle technique are responsible for the worrying rise in injuries
Aperfect snapshot of the frightening and beautiful elements of rugby was on view in the Exeter v Wasps match when the Chiefs’ Sam Simmonds was knocked out attempting to tackle Nathan Hughes. Hughes immediately tended to Simmonds by putting him in the recovery position while play continued.
More and more we are witnessing this duty of care between professionals. When I was playing, there was no way we would have stopped playing if someone was knocked out. Now, I think there is an increased understanding that these types of injury are serious and careers are short. This has given rise to the threat to strike if the domestic season is extended to 10 months, with players speaking as one that this is unacceptable.
But as injuries continue to mount after the first four rounds of the Aviva Premiership, I would argue that players are forgetting the duty of care they owe to themselves. You will never fully eliminate the risk of injury. It is part of the thrill of playing that certain academics will never understand. But there are steps you can take to reduce that risk.
A lot of the injuries we are seeing, particularly concussions, are the result of poor tackle technique and poor decision making. Going high is generally safer but is not as effective as going low, where your head is exposed to knees and hips. That is what happened in Simmonds’s case. Hughes had taken a quick tap penalty and, rather than hitting him high and conceding an extra two yards, he tried to go low, got his head on the wrong side and ended up concussed.
Players are so desperate to impress coaches and keep their place that they forget about their own safety. Call it the Lewis Moody effect. That is something I think about every single game. You can still make tackles, but play with your brain a bit more so you do not get hurt.
You have to know where you are putting your body and what the possible outcomes are. When I was playing and someone was
running straight at me, I would often let him go past me and then tackle from behind. I knew it was safer and I knew I could catch them.
I got criticised by Neil Back, who said I was conceding too many yards out wide. My argument was that I would rather concede a couple of yards than miss a tackle. He would rather that I stop them dead but that was his style, not mine. So what if you concede a try, get up and score another one.
Technique also plays a large part, which is why the recent call for no tackling in schools is so dangerous. All you would be doing is shifting the risk to kids when they get to 16 and 17. The injury levels would go through the roof.
There are other more radical proposals you could consider. The rugby league shoulder-check can look frightening but, if both players are upright, then it is a much safer way of stopping someone’s momentum than putting your head around their legs. The very act of wrapping your arms leaves your head exposed. I would be in favour of bringing that in with the proviso it is above waist high and below the shoulders.
Looking at other sports, the NFL players’ union forces the league to ban full-on contact training during the season, a step I think rugby will eventually take. Training does take a toll, particularly in those Tuesday sessions after a big defeat when coaches allow players to take all their frustration out on each other.
More straightforward solutions would be to reduce the amount of games or reduce players’ salaries so clubs could afford bigger squads, but I do not think either the clubs or the players would
countenance that. In the long term, the best way to make rugby safer is by making the game faster, which will encourage smaller, more agile players. When I stand next to these players now, 95 per cent could do with dropping five per cent of their
body weight when most of them they are trying to gain five per cent. However much muscle you gain, there is only a certain amount of load your joints and tendons can take.
You do not have to overhaul the laws to do this, you would just give referees the responsibility to speed the game up. Think how much time is wasted as teams ponder their options at every line-out, scrum and kick at goal. Putting the clock on captains would get rid of these committee-style meetings and hugely increase ball-in-play time. This, in turn, would put a premium on skill over size, which would de-power the collisions where so many injuries occur.
Austin Healey is a proud ambassador of Jeep Grand Cherokee www.jeep.co.uk