Trends in time‐loss injuries during the 2011‐2016 South African Rugby Youth Weeks

Abstract

Youth rugby is a popular sport in South Africa (SA) with a high injury incidence. The annual SA Rugby Youth Week tournaments attract the top age-group players in the country providing a sample of players for reliable injury surveillance. The aim of the study was to analyze the changes in time-loss injury rates at the SA Rugby Youth Week tournaments between 2011 and 2016, differences between age-groups, and to investigate associated injury risk factors. All confirmed time-loss injuries at the 4 age-group tournaments (under-13, under-16, and 2 under-18) from 2011 to 2016 were recorded. Injury incidence densities (IID) for years, tournaments, and injury risk factors were calculated and Poisson regression analyses were performed to determine differences. Time-loss injuries (n = 494) were reported over 24 240 exposure hours, with an overall IID of 20.4 (18.6-22.2) injuries per 1000 player hours. The year 2013 had a significantly lower IID compared to 2011. Injury risk decreased with increasing age; under-13 and under-16 had significantly higher IID compared to under-18 Craven Week. Tackling was the phase of play at highest risk, with an IID of 7.4 (6.3-8.5) injuries per 1000 player hours. Central/peripheral nervous system (CNS/PNS) and, therefore, the head/neck were the most commonly occurring injuries/location injured. In conclusion, within the SA Rugby tournament structure, the older players had a decreased rate of injury. The tackle event was still the phase of play with the highest injury incidence regardless of age. This increase in incidence is largely due to an increase in CNS/PNS injuries.

Training and match volume and injury in adolescents playing multiple contact team sports: A prospective cohort study

“…Compared with previous studies of injury incidence in youth rugby union and rugby league, the combined training and match injury incidence in this study was high . However, it is important that the injury incidence observed in the present study not be compared directly with previous studies of single sports.…”

Applied Sport Science for Male Age-Grade Rugby Union in England

“…Within age-grade RU in England, match injury rates ranged between 24 and 77 injuries per 1000 playermatch hours (using a greater than 24-h time-loss injury definition) [123,124]. These injury rates broadly correspond with documented match injury rates (using a comparable injury definition) from male age-grade RU in Northern Ireland (ages 16-18 years, 29/1000 playermatch hours [123]) and South Africa (ages 12-18 years, 20/1000 player-match hours [124]).…”

“…Within age-grade RU in England, match injury rates ranged between 24 and 77 injuries per 1000 playermatch hours (using a greater than 24-h time-loss injury definition) [123,124]. These injury rates broadly correspond with documented match injury rates (using a comparable injury definition) from male age-grade RU in Northern Ireland (ages 16-18 years, 29/1000 playermatch hours [123]) and South Africa (ages 12-18 years, 20/1000 player-match hours [124]). Match injury rates from English age-grade rugby also largely fall within the range outlined in the findings of a meta-analysis across both RU and rugby league in children and adolescent players (aged < 21 years) from a range of settings that revealed a pooled overall match injury incidence rate of 27 injuries/1000 player-match hours (95% confidence limits 13-54), irrespective of injury definition [110].…”

Evaluating the Implementation of Injury Prevention Strategies in Rugby Union and League: A Systematic Review using the RE-AIM Framework

“…Of the five intervention types found in more than one study, national injury prevention programme studies [30,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] had the greatest mean MDIC impact score, addressing all RE-AIM MDIC dimensions (▶table 3). Law change studies [51][52][53][54][55][56][57] failed to report information relating to the 'implementation' and 'adoption deliveryagent' of such laws and also had the lowest mean DB score.…”