Injuries in rugby

RugbySmart is the most successful injury prevention programme run by any sport in New Zealand and is certainly one of the most successful performance and injury prevention programmes anywhere in the world.

Every year since RugbySmart started we’ve seen significant drops in rugby-related injury claims. Last year, claims dropped by a further 3.5%.

The news gets better when we look at key injury areas over the past year:

  • Neck/ spine and back decreased by 13%
  • Knee, ankles and lower legs decreased by 4.3%
  • Shoulders decreased by 6.6%
  • Dental claims decreased by 6.6%

Serious spinal and head injuries … which used be 10-plus a year pre-RugbySmart have stayed around two per year for the last few seasons. Our goal is to totally eliminate them from our game.

"The best predictor of injury is recent injury. And the message from this is you don’t play injured. You make sure you get an injury treated properly, fully recovered and then get back on the rugby field."
Dr Graham Patterson – All Blacks doctor

Areas we all need to look at in the coming year are:

  • Physical conditioning is our theme for the year … but we’ll also be asking every referee, coach and player to look at:
    • Dangerous tackles. We’re seeing more dangerous tackles and these are going to be targeted more heavily to make sure those injuries stats keep dropping.
    • Illegal play. 12% of injuries are from illegal play … and that’s just not on: it’s completely against the spirit of the game and referees, coaches and administrators need to be active in keeping the game fair.
    • And, especially, we want to keep those spinal injuries down.