Call for legal tackle height to be lowered

World Rugby has been asked to consider reducing the legal height for a tackle after a seventh successive season of increased incidents of concussion in the English professional game.

The Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project, commissioned by the Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby, with the support of the Rugby Players’ Association, reported injury data for the 2016-17 season yesterday.

The report showed concussion was the most commonly reported match injury for a seventh straight year, contributing 22 per cent to the total.

And it suggested a World Rugby directive to increase sanctions on tackles and take a zero tolerance approach to contact with the head, introduced in January 2017, made “no difference” to the incidence of all injuries and concussion.

RFU medical services director Dr Simon Kemp said World Rugby was making its own analysis of data to consider a reduction in the legal height of a tackle which, RFU professional rugby director Nigel Melville said, has “become a bit of a grey area”.

Kemp said: “We would like World Rugby to give consideration to thinking about reducing the legal height for the tackle. There’s little margin for error with the permitted height of the tackle at the line of the shoulders.”

Melville added: “What we’re looking for is consistency across the refereeing. It’s challenging, with referees coming from different hemispheres, and you get a lack of consistency.”