14 yo girl broken bones after playing rugby against a 14 yo boy.

[LastRoloIsMine]

This happened this week.

A friend of my DDs met up with their mixed sex friendship group to play rugby.

They have done this since primary school and its the same group of friends. Its not a match and none of them play as a hobby they just mess around but do tackle each other.

They haven't done this in over a year due to covid ( and probably shouldn't have done it yesterday as restrictions are still in place ) but decided to resume their game from last year. As I said they have done this for years and the only injuries have been grazed knees and a few bruises.

Sadly one girl was tackled by one of the boys and it resulted in her foot being broken in 4 places!
The boy was distraught. He's a lovely lad and not aggressive in any way. My DD told me that he has grown in the last year, he's much taller and stronger than he used to be but still a "skinny" lad. He kept saying he didn't mean to tackle her so hard, he didn't realise how strong he was.
DD said he knocked her clean off her feet, he wasn't running fast it is just a friendly game but the injured girl said it was like running in to a wall.
She recovering at home and doesn't blame the young lad at all as it was an accident.

This just highlights to me the dangers of mixed sex contact sport. These kids don't train, are not professionals and we're only playing but the boys strength caused injury can you imagine what a professional or semi professional males could do to females when tackling?

I worry for the safety of female rugby players and fear it will take a woman to die or have life changing injuries for the governing bodies see sense.

It is my personal lived experience that the bigger, and heavier the object collided with, the worse the impact when you land. Those forces go somewhere.

For this reason, if I am going to end up flat on the ground during some form of sport, I would like it to be at the hands of a slight 14 year old girl, and not her 15 year old brother.

@R0wantrees

14 year old boys and girls don't play mixed rugby for very good reasons. This friendship group should stop now they are of that age and switch to something non contact.

Rounders is a good game for mixed sex and all ages to join in with.

Trust me @R0wantrees, mixed sex rounders isn’t a great idea for teens either. I am an official in a Women's Rounders League in the North West. We very occasionally organise tournaments for charity fund raising. We had mixed teams. A couple of years ago we had to stop this as we had far too many injuries caused by males colliding into females, particularly at 1st base.

Creepygnochi

The fastest 500m speed skaters reach 40mph, so I very much doubt a figure skater reaces that speed.

"reaches"

Rugby is a ridiculously dangerous sport end of, did nobody tell them that there was a danger of this? If so it was their choice, poor her and poor him. Someone said above about society insisting there is no differences, this so true, you are not allowed say a man or boy is physically stronger than a woman/girl. Everyone begins to argue but in general it is true. Of course there are exceptions but I will never be able to lift have the weights (eg bags of cement/ fuel for the fire etc) my dh would be able to

I thought the World Rugby governing body had already banned mixed rugby because of safety concerns.

It's incredibly improbable that this girl's foot broke because of anything the boy directly did and far more likely that she doesn't know how to fall and so landed awkwardly.

With respect, this is bollocks. Ice hockey (I presume you’re talking about) is a completely different game to rugby and the injuries to feet in both games will be different as one is played on grass in boots and one is played on ice with blades. As for falling, if you’re being tackled by more than one player how on earth can you control the fall? You can’t! Have you even watched rugby?

Don't be ridiculous, of course there is. Gymnastics, figure skating, ballet, rugby, AFL, skateboarding, skiing, surfing - the way these athletes fall when you watch them isn't random, it's as trained as any other move. if you're going to be playing a sport in which falling takes up a huge portion of your time it best be the very first thing you learn to do. Unless of course you"re suggesting getting tackled by a teenage boy is more dangerous than a ton of water crashing down on your head.

@FatCatThinCat

I thought the World Rugby governing body had already banned mixed rugby because of safety concerns.

They advised that mixed sex rugby should be ended due to the increased risk to women and girls. The governing bodies (including UK RFUs) chose to disregard the findings. This puts them in a dubious position in the event a woman or girl is injured by a male player.

Poor kids.
He must be feeling awful.

It's not going to end well when all sense has gone out the window and sports teams are mixed.

Mixed rugby is 10 and under its an absolute no for anything over that. Contact rugby is highly controlled. Dh is a pe teacher and would go so far as to say it's illegal. That's a great big law suit waiting to happen.

What did they they think would happen with a mixed sex group at that age???

Male and female comparisons in sport

@Creepygnochi

If she broke her foot it will have more to do with the angle she landed at then anything the boy directly did.

Yes, it's the girl's fault for landing wrong.

Mixed rugby is 10 and under its an absolute no for anything over that. Contact rugby is highly controlled. Dh is a pe teacher and would go so far as to say it's illegal. That's a great big law suit waiting to happen.

Absolutely.

Quote from World Rugby document

While there is overlap in variables such as mass, strength, speed and the resultant kinetic and kinematic forces we have modelled to explore the risk factors, the situation where a typical player with male characteristics tackles a typical player with female characteristics creates a minimum of 20% to 30% greater risk for those female players.

"In the event of smaller female players being exposed to that risk, or of larger male players acting as opponents, the risk increases significantly, and may reach levels twice as large, at the extremes.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/19/transwomen-face-potential-womens-rugby-ban-over-safety-concerns

Yes, it's the girl's fault for landing wrong.
Well not her fault exactly, it was an accident in a tough sport.

Well, yeah. It is. It's nobody else's fault you don't know how to fall. It's the same as breaking your wrist by putting your hand out to break a fall.

@Creepygnochi

Well, yeah. It is. It's nobody else's fault you don't know how to fall. It's the same as breaking your wrist by putting your hand out to break a fall.

Were you there?

Don't be ridiculous, of course there is. Gymnastics, figure skating, ballet, rugby, AFL, skateboarding, skiing, surfing - the way these athletes fall when you watch them isn't random, it's as trained as any other move.

I played rugby for my county, I can confidently say you are talking bollocks.
There is no similarity in being tackled in rugby to landing in gymnastics, figure skating, ballet and erm......skiing and surfing (which I’m pretty sure is not played against other humans, the odd dolphin maybe 🐬).

Were you there?

You'd think so wouldn't you.

There’s a reason male and female sport are separated in competition.
This is just the start. Female sport is being destroyed and no one seems to care.

Oh and the difference in male born players are VAST...
Hypertrophy and muscle mass
Bone density and size
Height and Limb size
Cardiovascular superiority (vo2 max, haemoglo in, tend not to suffer from low iron)
Lactic acid threshold

Oh and the lived experience of training as a male all those years (testosterone/receiving better training/being taken more seriously)

@Creepygnochi

Assassinated

Not sure if you realise this, but the physical mechanics of the foot is exactly the same no matter what it is doing. The real key difference is that in my sport 20 percent of all athletes retire as a direct result of a foot injury, which is to be expected really when you consider the sport is essentially encasing the foot in a leather encrusted cast with a four inch freshly sharpened blade attached to the bottom that you then use to move 50mph on the worlds most slippery surface, throw yourself up into the air as high as you can to complete 4 full body rotations in under a second, before landing on said slippery surface on a single foot at the force of a 1000lbs.

So yeah, think it's fair to say that I know more about foot injuries than any rugby player, ever.

Welsh centre Jamie Roberts is a qualified doctor who worked for Cardiff and Vale HB during the pandemic, so there's at least one rugby player who hopefully knows more about foot injuries than a random "ice sports mum".

Completely off topic, but OP could they switch to playing tag rugby if they still want to play together?

@Creepygnochi

Don't be ridiculous, of course there is. Gymnastics, figure skating, ballet, rugby, AFL, skateboarding, skiing, surfing - the way these athletes fall when you watch them isn't random, it's as trained as any other move. if you're going to be playing a sport in which falling takes up a huge portion of your time it best be the very first thing you learn to do. Unless of course you"re suggesting getting tackled by a teenage boy is more dangerous than a ton of water crashing down on your head.

What a load of bollocks. I danced for the majority of my life. As more than a hobby. I've seen my fair share of injuries. Because sometimes when you fall/slip you can't help the way you fall. Even with training.

And to the PP who said the parents shouldn't have let it happen, do you honestly think that 14 year olds are going to the park with Mummy and Daddy? Ffs.

Think maybe this should be in lgbt children

I’ll ask if it can be moved for you OP