THERE have been several deaths from rugby in the past decade, with one report putting it at at least 12, almost certainly more, from head impacts, up to late September 2018. Since then, there have been two more, both involving young men in France.
In fact there were four known deaths last year in France alone, with the last two happening within the last four weeks.
The first of the four cases was in May when 17-year-old Adrien Descrulhes died a day after a blow to the head in a game for amateur club Billom. He was found dead in bed due to haemorrhaging.
The next involved former France Under-20 international Louis Fajfrowski who took a heavy tackle in a game for Aurillac. He died in the changing room following a heart attack.
Last December Stade Francais academy player Nicholas Chauvin died after breaking his neck. Although only 18, Chauvin had shown good progress on the field and at times trained with the club’s senior side.
The latest to die was 23-year-old student Nathan Soyeur in Dijon. He was admitted to hospital after an adverse reaction to a tackle. Soyeur initially looked alright after the tackle but later complained of nausea before losing consciousness.
As a result of the four fatalities, the French Rugby Federation or FFR has decided to organise a global forum with the sport’s governing body World Rugby in March to discuss player health and the evolution of the laws of the game.
In July last year, Nigel Melville, the England Rugby Football Union’s professional rugby director, issued a statement that said 47 per cent of all match injuries the RFU had observed were associated with the tackle and concussion accounted for 19 per cent of all injuries to the ball carrier and 43 per cent of all injuries to the tackler.
Because of all these cases, people are of course concerned, especially that the way rugby is played has evolved so much, beyond recognition in some aspects, since becoming fully professional in 1996.
Players are bigger, stronger and faster, which means the hits or collisions are getting stronger too.
The research most often used to highlight concussion is the 1500-game study by World Rugby from 2013-2015 which concluded that 76 per cent of head injuries occured in the tackle – with 73 per cent of those suffered by the tackler. Another survey from England's RFU revealed that only 20 per cent of concussions were suffered by the ball carrier, 47 per cent by the tackler and the rest through collisions like the breakdown.
An article in France’s L’Équipe explained that it was a tackle that did it. “Rugby kills because with professionalism a rough game has become a violent game. Rugby kills because it believed that preparation protected everything, that the players’ bodies could take more tackles, could take harder, higher, tackles, often made by two defenders simultaneously. Rugby kills because we did not want to see that it could kill.”
There was another opinion recently that referred to how law changes by the governing body had changed the game drastically and suggested that this appear to have contributed to the higher number of serious injuries.
One change allows the clear-outs at the rucks where players not in possession of the ball are hit very hard and this is so unlike the rucks in the old days, where the most serious damage was from raking by the boots and this too confined to a player or players not allowing play to continue by killing the ball (lying on top or blocking it in one way or the other, which was against the laws of the game.)
Such is the way rugby is played these days that often some forwards not committed to the breakdown will be lining up like backs on one side of the ruck, ready to carry on with the movement, usually to set up the next ruck.
Present day rugby also allows the tactical use of decoy runners or blockers. While it is not known to lead to serious injuries, the tactic does result in unnecessary collisions.
But despite these grim accounts, is rugby the most dangerous sport in the world? Not from this article, not even in the top five.
Bukit Jalil too huge a venue for rugby in Malaysia
A few weeks ago, the Malaysian Rugby Union confirmed that it had locked in the 80,000 capacity Bukit Jalil National Stadium for the Asian Top Tier matches against South Korea and Hong Kong in May and June. Although it should have been relegated after last year’s tournament, Malaysia gets to play in the top tier again this year because Japan is playing in the World Cup it is hosting from September to early November.
This apparently is part of a “think big” policy and where can you find a venue bigger than Bukit Jalil?
When Malaysia played the same two teams last year, the crowd for each game was estimated at 10,000 although the figure has also been put at 15,000. Even if it was the latter, surely Bukit Jalil is simply too big a venue for a rugby game involving these teams.
The problem with having a crowd of even 50,000 for a stadium that can fit in 80,000 is that it doesn’t make for a pretty sight. It looks worse on television and surely Malaysia does not want that.
The Petaling Jaya or Kuala Lumpur Stadium would be a better choice.