Research- Is rugby dangerous?

"Fitness: Rugby is a full contact sport that lasts over a period of time. Fitness enables a player to make it around the field. Fitness enables a player to continue to concentrate on the game. Often when a player lacks fitness, his concentration and focus on the game and their potential actions within the game starts to drop significantly. A player will only focus on how bad they are personally sucking. Fitness enables a player to continue to play hard. The human body has a natural fight or flight mechanism. The fight mechanism increases a player's arousal level both physically and mentally. Many injuries occur when a player is neither physically nor mentally prepared to make contact. The focus on fitness, especially at the lower levels of play was often lacking. When I first started playing in the rugby dark ages, American football players were admired (quietly of course) for being athletes first and players second. Then it was rugby player first, and if one was an athlete, cool. the modern game puts a premium on athletes.

Knowledge of the game. Purely from a practical sense, a sport where multiple pieces of beef are making repeated contact with each other and the ground is a recipe for significant injuries. The Laws of the Game are designed minimize the danger of the sport by making several blatantly dangerous acts common in other sports (contact for intimidation, contact with intent to injure, etc) major penalties. The laws have very specific requirements for certain inherently dangerous player positions, specific requirements and sanctions for violating the requirements during the course of play, and laws that regulate equipment and playing environment. Props (large squatty bodies on the front row) are required to maintain a safe body position that takes into account the massive forces going through their bodies. Tacklers may not leave their feet and must physically wrap their arms around their opponent. The field must be cleared of dangerous conditions (hard surfaces, sharp objects, spectator line, padded goal posts, etc). In spite of the importance of physical attributes in rugby, it is the mental aspects of knowledge of the laws and application of techniques that contributes more to a successful rugby player.

Proper equipment: This is very important and is recognized as such by the laws. Items of equipment must not have dangerous edges and surfaces. The first and most important piece of equipment is the mouthpiece. While it is good for protecting the teeth, it is more important for minimizing the effects of concussion. The mouthpiece provides a cushion when the lower jaw makes sudden contact with the skull, such as in most types of tackles. Rugby boots do not have toe cleat. This prevents a single jotting point at the toe that can be used as dangerous weapons. The cleats themselves are “safety stud” made up of aluminum. While not obvious, they are safer because they wear evenly, rarely having sharp edges and burrs common in other sports cleats. Head protection and shoulder pads are relatively new additions to the sport and the court is still out on their benefits. I am convinced that they are not useful for new players and youth players, especially with Americans with a football background. When proper playing technique is used, the shoulder pads and head gear provide some minimum protection if something goes wrong. There are two unfortunate tendencies that I have seen. One is that in spite of the padding being relatively thin, many players have an unrealistic belief in their protective capability, putting less reliance on skill and technique. The second is with this belief in the protective capability of the padding; there is a tendency to use shoulders and heads more as weapons. These are not plastic padded helmets and huge shoulder pads.

Attitude: Rugby is a sport steeped in tradition. Many of these traditions are based on the early days of rugby union when it was the province of the gentlemen classes both in school and society. The Latin root for the word amateur is amat, to love. Amateurs play the sport for the love of the sport. Due its early environment, being a gentlemen and anamateur went hand in hand. Realistically, there must be some sort of discipline on a playing field with thirty players and a single referee. Sportsmanship, the paradigm of playing fairly provides that discipline. Dangerous play is unacceptable. The attitude of intentionally injuring your opponent has no place in rugby.


The previous is philosophy and concepts. One major reason that rugby has significantly fewer catastrophic injuries then many other sports is simply, there are fewer contacts and each contact is within certain specific conditions.

Contact is what causes most injuries. Look at an average American football play that lasts fifteen seconds. Every lineman makes full contact with their opponent (seven contacts). The blocking back makes maybe three good high speed blocks (three contacts); the ball carrier who gets tackled (one contact). This is eleven contacts, many either high speed or high force contacts are made in fifteen seconds. In rugby contact is made in set play according to specific requirements (front row hits opposition at referee's command) the ball gets out. In loose play, contact can only be made in the vicinity of the ball and generally only the initial tackle is either high speed or high force. It can take up to a minute and a half of rugby playing to have the same number of contacts that American football has almost every play. A vast majority of the rugby contacts are regulated by the laws and are designed minimize the danger of the contacts, so they are usually niether high speed or high force. In addition, this is where knowledge of the laws and fitness come into play. Unlike American football where it is the tackler who is often hurt, in rugby it is the tackler who is hurt. A player who knows how to tackle safer is less likely to get."

"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."