Injuries in New Zealand amateur rugby league matches by positional groups

Abstract

aim: To investigate the incidence, site, nature, and severity of injuries of a division 1 amateur rugby league team in New Zealand by positional groups. Study Design: Observational prospective cohort study. Subjects: A total of 145 amateur rugby league players of a premier level division 1 amateur rugby league team participated in this study over two consecutive competition seasons. outcome Measures: For each match-play injury it was recorded; how the injury occurred; how many games, if any were subsequently missed; and the type, site and severity of injury. Injuries were reported as rate per 1,000 hours, also broken down into severity ac - cording to the number of games missed. Results: Over the duration of the study there were 377 injuries recorded with a total injury rate of 419.3 per 1,000 match hr. There was a significant difference observed that hit-up forwards recorded more lower limb injuries than adjustables (RR: 1.6 [95% CI: 1.0 to 2.6] p=0.044) but not significantly more than outside backs (RR: 1.3 [95% CI: 0.9 to 2.1] p=0.210). Hit-up forwards recorded more injuries as the ball-carrier than the tackler, whilst outside backs and adjustables recorded more injuries as the tackler than the ball carrier. Conclusions: This study has identified that there are positional differences in the rate, site and type of injuries that occur during amateur rugby league match-play. The study further identifies that rugby league match-play is associated with high injury rates and that additional injury prevention strategies designed to reduce the incidence of injury in rugby league are required.