Rugby - the most dangerous sport?
Rugby union is becoming more dangerous. What can we learn from Grid Iron?
Surely rugby is more dangerous than American football, those guys wear pads and helmets?Hang on a moment - there's a new school of thought!
There's a famous line from 'The Replacements' starring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman, where Shane Falco, played by Reeves, a washed-out all-American Quarter Back, delivers an inspiring line to his team of misfits:
"Pain heals, chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever!"
Great news indeed - but these American footballers wear pads and helmets - rugby players have very little protective clothing... surely rugby union is far more dangerous and hence is guaranteed to pay out more glory...and chicks?
With Shane Falco's inspiring line in my back pocket I trundled over to the England rugby training camp the other day to see what I could find.
What I found was a national squad in dire straights. With test matches looming against New Zealand, Argentina and the South African Springboks in November, half their player base is laid up with some form of injury. Head coach Andy Robinson describes it as an absolute injury pandemic that is threatening to bring English rugby to its knees.
I mean it's all about the chicks and glory right? Pain being the means to this end! But surely if you're always injured - where do you fit in time for chicks and glory?
A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine rates rugby union as more dangerous than rugby league, AFL, soccer and ice hockey, showing that, on average, in every English Premiership game at least two players from each side were lost for 18 days.
Maybe rugby players need more protective padding?
Never having played American Football and having suffered through 15 odd seasons of Rugby Union, I'm fairly undecided as to which is a more dangerous career to follow, but the concussions, scars, fresh bruises and long term groin injury do lean me towards a general bias.
Come on - these footballers wear helmets and padding, surely I play a more dangerous game - where are my chicks and glory?
Wikipedia's American Football section tells me that increased padding has allowed players to make harder hits; though there are fewer minor injuries in American football than in other codes of football, some types of serious injuries such as spinal cord injuries are much more common. Twenty-five football players died from injuries directly related to football from 2000-2004, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. Concussions are common, with about 41,000 suffered every year among high school players according to the Brain Injury Association of Arizona.
With rugby players becoming bigger and more physical, as the newly found professional era takes its effect on the game, rugby union is indeed becoming more dangerous. With more and more game time being forced upon the players too, the incidence of major injuries is becoming a common issue, one which has the potential to seriously impact the nature of the game.
Whilst we can learn somewhat from American football and their obsession with pads and helmets, it's clear that these only help to increase the physicality, as players are able to plough into each other with greater intensity resulting in far more life threatening injury concerns.
So what is the solution?
How do we minimise the pain and maximise the chicks and glory?
