Depleted Harlequins and Wasps stoke fresh fears over injury crisis
London club without 25 players for recent game ‘Crazy’ plans to extend season add to concern
Concerns over rugby’s growing injury crisis intensified yesterday, with Harlequins centre Jamie Roberts claiming the club’s physio room had resembled “a bit of a morgue” this season, and the Wasps director of rugby, Dai Young, stating his side had three times as many injuries as they would normally expect at this stage of the season.
The pair made their comments after serious concerns were raised over the number of injuries in the first five weeks of the season.
Harlequins had 25 senior and academy players unavailable for Saturday’s game with Northampton, while Young – who believes an increase in the number of tackles per game is to blame – revealed Wasps were missing 14 players for Sunday’s visit of Bath, a huge increase on the “five or six” he would normally expect.
There are concerns the issue could be worsened by the plan to extend the season to 10 months and remove fallow weeks from the Six Nations, with some players suggesting they would consider a strike if they were forced through. Roberts, a qualified doctor, has added his name to those horrified by the proposal, labelling it “crazy”.
“Those fallow weeks in the Six Nations allow your body to recover,” Roberts said. “They do you the world of good because you are pretty tired after two Test matches. To cut it short was a crazy idea.
“The Rugby Players’ Association’s stance is pretty clear. Rest is equally as important as playing. The lads will tell you when you have a good off-season and rest and get a good pre-season in, that is when your body feels at its best.
“If you are going to extend the season you have to remember that international players will be playing into July. You can’t expect them to have four weeks off and maybe three weeks’ pre-season. It is crazy.
“You will still be in training. That mental time away from the game is equally as important. When you are looking at extending the season, the number-one priority should be player welfare.”
Both Roberts and Young have their own theories regarding why numbers of injuries have spiked so drastically. “I think you’re only 100 per cent fit in your first-ever game of rugby,” Roberts admitted. “It’s a cliche but it’s very true. The medical team here do a great job – they are probably the most important people at the club. They do a great job at turning four-five-week injuries into three-week injuries.
“The physio room has resembled a bit of a morgue at times. At the start of the season, we’ve had a few injuries and other sides have, too, but some other sides haven’t had too many at all.
“One thing I have noticed is defences – first, second, third phases – are not competing for the ball. They are just making that tackle and filling the field, so there’s not too much space out there to try and exploit. And that means there’s a lot of two-man collisions; you’re getting halted by a couple of blokes rather than one.
“Whether that has an influence on the injury rate, I don’t know, it’s hard to quantify. The game has always been attritional.”
Young, meanwhile, says that while collisions are more severe, the actual number within matches has risen significantly in recent years. “There’s at least 50 more contacts in the game, in every game we play, than there has been previously,” he said. “Ball-in-play time is roughly the same – up until about two seasons ago you’d be in the high 30s – now it’s well past 40.
“The contacts have changed. The reasons for that, teams are kicking a lot less, teams are trying to keep the ball more. If they keep the ball more, there are obviously more contacts, that’s the biggest thing that has jumped out from the stats.
“The back-rowers and the centres are tending to take the brunt of it. There are going to be more tackles, every week there seems to be a new record. It’s the same guys making the tackles. Now the weather’s coming in, whether that will change and teams will play for field position more, I don’t know. Let’s have a look at it over the season.”