Rugby union: is there a way out of the injury crisis?

Rugby union is suffering a crisis, said Tom Fordyce on BBC Sport online: an injury crisis. By late September, a mere four matches into the season, the Premiership’s 12 clubs had suffered an extraordinary 82 injuries between them. Manu Tuilagi, the Leicester centre, has torn ligaments in his knee; Jack Nowell, who plays at centre for Exeter, fractured his cheekbone and eye socket. Some of the injuries are serious, some are not. But they have a devastating cumulative effect: Wasps and Gloucester have each had to make do without 15 players – the equivalent of an entire team.

This crisis is hardly surprising, said Ben Coles in The Daily Telegraph. The nature of the game has changed. Tackles have become far more frequent, partly because of tactical developments, partly because of new rules which have resulted in players spending less time competing for the ball at the breakdown and scrum, and more time defending. In the first five matches of the season, the average number of tackles per match was a third higher than the average for the 2013/14 season. And tackles are responsible for half of all injuries. The period in which the ball is in play – the time when one of the teams has the ball, or is at least in a position to contest it – has increased, too. This season, it was in play for 38 minutes a match, on average, in the first five matches – fully seven minutes more than the average four seasons ago. And with fewer breaks in games, there is inevitably “increased strain” on players’ bodies.

The trouble is, the Premiership only wants to make things worse, said Sam Peters in The Independent. It has proposed extending the season from 2019 onwards from nine months to ten, limiting the time available to players for recuperating at the end of a tough campaign. That’s the exact opposite of what the sport needs. All these injuries are having a huge effect on results, said Austin Healey in The Daily Telegraph. Poor Wasps are now just two places off the bottom of the table; last week, they lost their first match of the season in the European Champions Cup. By contrast, Saracens – who boast a squad of “staggering depth” – are top of the table, and making a push for a third successive Champions Cup title. By rotating their top players, they’re able to protect them – which is precisely why they can thrive in two competitions. But they’re an exception: few clubs now have the resources to “fight on two fronts”.