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Risks of youth rugby need urgent scrutiny
A senior doctor at Bristol Children’s Hospital has said that the unknown risks of youth rugby need urgent assessment to ensure the safety of junior players.
Writing in this week’s British Medical Journal, paediatric neurosurgeon Michael Carter argues that “rugby sidesteps many safeguards intended to ensure pupil wellbeing” and calls on schools, clubs, medical facilities, and regulatory bodies to “cooperate now to quantify the risks of junior rugby”.
In UK schools where rugby is played, it mostly begins as a near compulsory activity from the age of eight years, he explains. By 10 years, most players engage in some form of contact competition, increasing the potential for injury.
is needed now More than ever
But Carter points out that avoidance of injury requires considerable skills that not all children acquire, while squads may contain children of similar age but vastly different physical stature.
“Schools, coaches, and parents all contribute to a tribal, gladiatorial culture that encourages excessive aggression, suppresses injury reporting, and encourages players to carry on when injured,” he adds.
Thankfully, most injuries are not serious, he says, but a substantial number are not.
A quick check with neurosurgical colleagues yielded around 20 children’s rugby injuries over the past decade that needed neurosurgical consultation or intervention, he writes, including two deaths, four or five serious spinal fractures, and several depressed skull fractures, with varying degrees of associated brain injury.
But much can be done to improve the situation, he says. Creative match scheduling as well as preseason and early season strength and conditioning training “are possible solutions that other rugby playing countries have already adopted.”
In addition, weight as well as age should be considered during squad selection.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
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