To think sport comes with an element of danger (Rugby)

[DadKeepsCalm1]

In the news today, a group of 70 doctors have written to the government to make rugby a non contact sport at high school.

Although a rougher sport, it really is not that dangerous with the proper equipment and professional supervision.

Also how are we supposed to find new talent, if people are not trained to play proper rugby.

My dss is 16 and plays rugby for his school and its by far my favourite sport. I love watching him play and it would be ashame if the game was spoiled.

I would be ok with boxing training and well supervised sparring being in schools as long as it was under amateur rules

The real problem is how boys develop at such vastly different rates. From age 11 onwards you effectively get boys having to play against men. That's how they get hurt.

In a large school that isn't much of a problem but it must be a real issue if there are only 50 or so boys

Then play a different sport eastpoint.

I actually do like rugby as a sport, if it wasn't so good it would be easy to leave behind. But mide, genuinely interested what you think it teaches that other sports can't? I haven't played so don't know.

IMO because of the physical nature of rugby the team work element is magnified. I think it creates a stronger bond or more respect between players than other team sports.

And I think you can see that respect in the way players respond to each other off pitch, which doesn't seem to exist in most other team sports (cricket can be an exception).

that's interesting mide. I do think watching the game that it's a fascinating contrast between effectively thumping into each other at max speed and an incredible amount of control.

because of a small risk

It's not a small risk, though. It's a very significant one, and the risk rises in less well-supervised situations and with less well-trained athletes who may be playing against much larger and heavier opponents.

When I took my son out of a martial arts module at school it was explicitly because the risks of matching physically-adult 13 year olds against physically juvenile boys was not adequately recognised.

My son does a risk sport (bmx racing) where the risks of injury are explicitly controlled by the use of helmets, body armour and neck protection. I have no issue with exposing children to controlled risks as long as the child accepts them willingly and they are equipped to minimise them, in terms of skill and protective clothing. But the truth is that it's very difficult for parents, let alone children, to assess the risks their children are exposed to in school rugby because they have little influence over the extent to which risk-taking behaviour is allowed.

Do you have any data to say that there is significant risk Misti?

A quote from the article posted earlier( I think)

"
One figure that was reported in the study was a match injury rate of 10.8 per 1000 player hours (8.7 per 1000 player hours for injuries that kept players away from rugby participation from one week or more)1. Another way of expressing these figures is to convert them to the number of hours or matches a player would need to play on average before incurring an injury. From the reported rates, a school rugby player could expect to sustain an injury once every 93 hours of play, or once every 69 matches of 80 minutes duration (one injury every 86 matches that would keep the player away from rugby for a week or more). Parents, coaches and children probably should be provided with such information. I suspect there is room for considerable debate about whether such risks represent unacceptably high rates of injury."

It would be interesting to see how this compares to other sports played in schools and other popular sports.

I have no problem with children playing rugby at school, but it must be taught by qualified teachers.
Now that it has become part of the primary curriculum many teachers are forced to teach it as a class sport, as I was, without having had any training or experience.
This is when it becomes dangerous.

mide the rate of serious injury in rugby is pretty well established eg (BMJ article): www.allysonpollock.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BMJ_2015_Freitag_RugbyInjurySurveilance.pdf

Neck and head injuries are significantly higher in rugby than in other team sports with the possible exception of American football. I don't think any of this is controversial.

I have no particular issue with risk sports since I have done one myself to a high level (and nearly lost my life in a serious climbing accident). My son does risk sports. I have no issue with risk per se.

Where I have an issue with rugby is that risk is not effectively communicated or mitigated. Children should only be expected to play contact sports if they have adequate technical mastery and muscle development, are wearing appropriate safety gear, and have consented to the risks they are taking (for pre-teens it should require parental consent).

I agree with your last paragraph Misti, although the appropriate safety gear is a whole other argument but I guess it depends on the definition of "significant" and figures in isolation without comparing them to other things can look worse than they are IMO.

if I'm reading that link correct, there have been 77 " permanently disabling spinal injuries" between 1975 and 2005 in New Zealand. According to Wiki there are around 200,000 players in New Zealand.

The other of the link clearly has an agenda as well IMO.

The author of the link posted and the original article are one and the same - Allyson Pollock.

mide It's fair to say that it would be useful to have more data on injury rates in rugby but I don't think it's controversial to suggest that it's one of the most risky team sports in terms of the potential for serious, life-changing injury. There is ample evidence that there is an elevated risk of serious spinal and head injury, and in regular players, of long-term neurological damage. Whether the risk is too great or not is of course a personal decision, which is why you encourage your children to play rugby and I would prefer mine not to (and would prevent them from doing so at school - I'd let my son play in a properly-run club if he were so inclined).

I'm not in favour of banning dangerous sports - just of making participation voluntary, encouraging informed decision-making, and requiring schools and clubs to implement evidence-based risk-reduction practices for young players.

Rugby is a healthy fun sport for boys and girls. My son played from age six with immediate contact in all areas. He is still playing now at 23. Keep it as is, kids hurt themselves running down the street and falling, tripping up, out on their bikes...you name it! I have seen a few injuries over the years to children but nothing major and I have heard worse from other parents when their children were just out playing and doing what kids do. Leave it alone.

Do you not think we should do what New Zealand do user1457187968 and make children play based on weight, not age?

This link is worth a read. Banding by weight not age is mainly related to those countries having ethnic groups who develop physically quicker than others. They still tackle etc

playerwelfare.worldrugby.org/?subsection=64

Teach the children to tackle correctly , enforce the laws of the Game and discipline on field.

I know the argument is about compulsory rugby in schools but the extreme view of this report / letter alienates those ( World Rugby , Rugby Unions and Sports Experts - many of the 70 signatures are not ) who are already working and researching to make the Game safer.

If the authors of the letter took the approach to say ' what can we do together ' ' how can we work in collaboration' they might have got a different response.

I think due to the very contrasting arguments, the safest solution is to make school rugby optional with parental consent. It should have parental consent, which supports the UN convention for the rights of the child anyway.

mistigri
What are the data for other sports ......... ?
as without them all comments on Rugby are irrelevant

talkingpeace types of injury will vary between sport so comparisons aren't always easy, but the incidence of all injuries and particuarly head and neck injuries in school rugby appears to be significantly higher than in soccer, see for eg www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15039253

Extract from the abstract, which suggests that not only were head and neck injuries significantly more frequent in rugby than in soccer, but that relatively untrained players were at additional risk. (My italics).

"RESULTS:
Comparison of the incidence of soccer and rugby injuries indicated that rugby union football was associated with a significantly higher rate of injury than soccer. The differences were pronounced for contact injuries, injuries of the head, neck, shoulder, and upper extremity, as well as for concussion, fractures, dislocations, and strains. Rugby players incurred 1.5 times more overuse and training injuries in relation to exposure time, and 2.7 times more match injuries than soccer players. Three rugby players but no soccer players had to stop their participation in sport because of severe injury.
CONCLUSION:
The incidence of injury in New Zealand school teams playing soccer or rugby union is high, probably in part because of the low ratio of hours spent in training relative to hours spent playing matches. The development and implementation of preventive interventions to reduce the rate and severity of injury is recommended."

Rugby isn't the "most dangerous" sport by any means but it's dangerous compared with most other team sports, and also dangerous compared to other sports commonly taught by non-specialist teachers in schools.

There have been studies which show that Western children are increasing becoming less resilient in comparison to children in other countries. (Broadly summarising). This sort of constant emphasis in our society on risk aversion really does more harm than good. There have been recent newspaper articles about the increase in chronic anxiety among teenagers and young adults. Again, I do not think this emphasis on fear of what might happen is helpful in teaching children that they can deal with things if they go wrong. There is some risk associated with playing Rugby. My son played every Sunday for a year. His upper thigh became injured and he had to atend a private clinic to get it assesed and then eventually kings Hosp. and some sort term physiotherapy. He stopped going Rugby for several months while it healed and then lost interest in going back didn't like the thought of getting out of bed in the freezing cold morning anymore He is also a black belt in taewondo where he has sparred with older and bigger children. It has strengthened his resilience and given him a confidence I never had at that age. Again he has had a few injuries. But working through them has taught him that if you get hurt you can recover and achieve. I would think similar things happen with dance, ballet, mountain climbing etc. You don't become the best at any physical sport without clobbering a few injuries and working through them.

In terms of acute injury doing a sport I would think statistically it's very rare even if certain sports have a higher ratio than others.

I'm not talking about avoiding risk, but about assessing and mitigating it appropriately, and obtaining consent.

How seriously one should take risk depends not only on the likelihood of something going wrong, but also the consequences. While it's possible and even sensible to have a fairly robust attitude to children picking up minor injuries playing sports, I'd like to think that parents should be given a choice about exposing their children to elevated risks of potentially catastrophic, life-changing injury.

Some other sports also have quite high rates of serious head injuries (the worst offenders are actually not team sports at all, but individual sports such as cycling, horse-riding and skiing) - but none of these are routinely taught as part of a compulsory sports curriculum by unqualified coaches in schools.

I don't think rugby should be compulsory at school: any child playing a sport, especially a potentially dangerous one, is more at risk if they are playing reluctantly.

Having said that, I am happy for ds (now 15) to play rugby. He's been playing since he was 5 and has gone through the Age Grade Law Variations, from touch only (none of the clubs up here seem to have tags, so they play touch instead from P1-P3), running with the ball in two hands (no hand-offs), restricted scrums/ scrummaging/line-outs to now at U16 playing pretty much the full version of the game.

He is only 5'5" and very slim so not one of the "big" boys but as he plays scrum half, that's not an issue.

In Scotland all club coaches have to have passed their "Rugby Ready" element (which addresses safety) and all Minis (up to 11/12) coaches have to have completed and passed the UKCC1 accreditation and all the Midis (up to U16) have to have UKCC2 Accreditation. (Don't know the requirements for the Senior Club as I'm not involved with it but I presume they also have to have UKCC2).

Don't know about the schools - ds is at a school that is an SRU funded "School of Rugby" so his (rugby) class got extra rugby for the 1st 2 years of secondary and their coach/PE teacher got extra coaching himself, as well as another coach from one of the clubs himself.

The kids, especially at secondary level, are not supposed to play 2 days in a row - it drives dh and that they get away with it (in fact, he is going to take it up as an official complaint as a change in the Youth set up this season meant that the "top" tiers no longer needed to submit team sheets because they were "trusted" ) - it is the private schools who are mostly at fault here.

Ds' club is "Positive Coaching Scotland" accredited: this means that we don't encourage a "win at all costs" mentality and encourage (to use the jargon) a "mastery culture, not a scoreboard culture".

Safety is taken very seriously: any suspicion of concussion and the child is taken off and after concussion, not allowed to play for 3 weeks. Dh is up at 9 every Sunday and if it's too hard, then the games are called off (although in most cases, they've been called off because they are waterlogged/there is standing water).

Can't remember who it was who suggested protective gear like scrum caps and body armour: I'm not in favour as the evidence suggests that players just feel more invincible and go in harder. (Scrum caps may have a role for those actually in the scrum to stop cauliflower ears). To use the American football analogy - the brain will still rattle in the contact, even of you're wearing a helmet.

Ds also cycles: I watch his races with my heart in my mouth much more than I do watching rugby. Kids can get knocked out in a cycling crash and then are back racing the following day . Dh did his 1st Aid course for rugby one February a few years ago and had never had to use it for rugby but in the May, ds went to a 3 day series of cycling races and dh had to use his "skills" 5 times in 3 days, just as a spectator - mostly broken collar bones but also concussion. 60-70 kids thundering into corners of narrow paths at 30-40(+) mph means carnage if a wheel touches

I'm not unaware of the dangers of CTE (which can ultimately cause dementia). I know that a lot of the research has come from Welsh and Irish Rugby, American Football and boxing, because the players' health is being documented. The reason I know this is because my mother died as a consequence of a head-injury induced dementia following a cycling accident - and her well-documented brain (it took 2 years for her to develop the dementia, during which time we thought she was gradually recovering, and then 2 years to die ) will help contribute to the research as they think there is a chance they can learn to switch off the protein(?) that causes the damage.

But despite this, I still cycle myself and encourage ds to do so.

You can't live life worried about what might happen: you just need to get on with living it.

There is a good blog from the "School of Hard Knocks" - a rugby club set up in London especially for troubled/deprived kids - which talks about how it is the very physicality and potential for injury which teaches both self-discipline and camaraderie in rugby. Can't link to it as I'm on the app and I'm not going to risk losing this very long post

prettybird I'd agree with pretty much everything you say there. I'd be happy for DS to play rugby in the set-up you describe, if he wanted to.

There is nothing wrong with danger in sports per se. In fact I'd positively support teaching children to manage and mitigate risk. DS is a very, very safe, skilled cyclist and skier - he knows what danger looks like, and he knows his limits. That doesn't mean there is no risk, but it's an acceptable risk that he takes willingly.

Talking about skiing and judging risk: having just got back from a week's skiing, during which we downloaded an app called Skitracks (after the couple of hours we spent skiing with our ski-instructor-now-friend - not a lesson, just following him at speed ), next time we are definitely definitely getting helmets. My max speed was 80.9km/hr and dh's 90.6km/hr (don't understand that as I'm the better skier and always get places first unless poling is involved )