While the efforts made certainly help there is no getting around the fact that it is an impact sport. That combined with a culture of being tough means that few ‘good’ players escape completely injury free. Short of touch rugby there will still be head impacts and that will have an effect of varying degrees - just maybe not noticeable.
Personally I find it difficult to understand how parents can let their kids play rugby when there is such overwhelming evidence that it’s risky at best.
I've hurt myself far less playing rugby than soccer, and had way more fun too.
Yes, it's a high impact sport, and that's exactly why there are a lot of rules to prevent anyone from getting seriously injured.
Also, the objective of Rugby is to get the "ball" at the other side of the camp while avoiding the most friction possible, not to hurt each other. In fact, we were often encouraged to avoid contact whenever possible and to pass the ball whenever we could.
There is also a lot of training on how to to fall and how to not hurt your opponents too, I wouldn't say it's "risky at best", quite the contrary, I'd recommend the sport to anyone young enough.
>I've hurt myself far less playing rugby than soccer,
Respectfully, self-assessment is exactly the wrong approach here.
Play soccer, break a leg. Obvious - leg is broken. Play rugby, lose 5% mental ability - less obvious especially in a self(!)-assessment of one's mental ability.
>Also, the objective of Rugby
I've been on the receiving side of some nasty rugby tackles...including the type where I don't remember a lot about them. So yes I do understand the objective of Rugby and all that great stuff.
>In fact, we were often encouraged to avoid contact whenever possible and to pass the ball whenever we could.
If everyone plays a clean textbook version then that works out well. In my experience putting a bunch of determined testosterone fuelled guys on a field does not result in textbook clean though. Not even close.
Rugby/Boxing/NFL/whatever...consider this. 99% of NFL post mortems show CTE. Not just a few - 99%. Lets suppose Rugby is way better like literally halves the risk despite both similar contact sports but lets pretend Rugby is way better. Can you really "recommend the sport to anyone young enough" at 49% CTE risk? Telling me about training how to fall is just not going to cut it.
So yes "risky at best" is my assessment of the situation.
I stopped playing Rugby when before I was 18, and the final year of that was where it became serious. I have mild lasting damage to my spine which is painful rather than incapacitating and suffered one serious concussion. I also suffered some muscle strains.
The spinal damage was from playing against people in my college year group who were clearly much older than me, and should not have been playing against 16 year olds. The head injury was caused by my running towards a ruck which broke up in front of me, leaving someones head poking through to hit my face. It didn't happen in a tackle where the normal hits happen. It was a freak, but yes it would have been less likely in a tiddleywinks competition.
The other injuries I saw were a horrible broken leg from someone training in non-studded foot wear, and muscle strains typical of all athletic activities. I saw one more person knocked out in training who was simply holding a tackle pad and had their head in a very dubious position...
My point was really that the risks in American football could be reduced without ruining the game. No Rugby is not safe, neither is not taking exercise. You have to weigh up your own risks.
> The spinal damage was from playing against people in my college year group who were clearly much older than me, and should not have been playing against 16 year olds.
School rugby in NZ had a great solution to this that I wish was implemented elsewhere. The teams were categorised by weight rather than age, which makes a lot more sense for school / college Rugby.
> Personally I find it difficult to understand how parents can let their kids play rugby when there is such overwhelming evidence that it’s risky at best.
Frankly every time a child gets in a car they are much more likely to get injured than in a game of rugby. I guess it's time to start wrapping our children in bubblewrap every time they go out, just in case...
>Riding in a car is a necessary part of daily life.
That's a very America-centric point of view, and completely not true if you live in a city designed to accommodate high-density living (or at the very least one without terrible public transport).
It's not America-centric, it's anyplace-that-requires-a-car-centric.
If you're putting a child in a car, it's safe to assume it's not usually for recreational purposes. It's usually because it's the easiest (or only) way to move them a certain distance.
Yes, but people can choose to structure their life in ways that don't require putting children in cars, hence greatly reducing the risk of their children being in traffic accidents. So cars are not unavoidable, they're just a trade-off.
Indeed, it’s not per minute. But measure the injuries from a year of car riding vs a year of rugby, and our collective decision to make autos part of daily life looks more interesting
It still just seems like apples-to-oranges to me. It's perfectly rational to accept the risk of transportation, as transportation is often vital. The same isn't true of things done for pleasure, like sports.
Personally I find it difficult to understand how parents can let their kids play rugby when there is such overwhelming evidence that it’s risky at best.