News: Injuries

Scrums should banned from schools rugby, according to a recent report.. Respected medical expert Professor Allyson Pollock (although I'm not sure how much respect I have for someone who can't even spell Alison) looked at 190 rugby matches played at five schools and spotted 37 injuries, 20 of which required hospital treatment.

I’ll come back to those numbers in a minute, but first a couple of thoughts on statistics. Eight out of 10 cats prefers Whiskas, said an old TV advertising campaign. That had to be modified to something like ‘eight out of 10 owners who expressed a preference said their cat preferred Whiskas’. But who did they ask, and how did they select the participants? One would hope that it was a high street or telephone survey, with two questions: Do you have a cat, and what cat food does it prefer?

But even then, we could dig deeper. Ok, Tibbles prefers Whiskas, but compared to what? Broken glass? Old copies of the phone book soaked in engine oil? Or an alternative premium pet food brand?

So, 190 rugby matches played at five schools and 37 injuries, 20 of which required hospital treatment. That sounds like nearly one in five matches resulted in a player being injured. But what constitutes an injury? And what does ‘required hospital treatment’ mean? It’s an ambiguous phrase. Someone being airlifted to hospital with serious head and neck injuries could be said to require hospital treatment. But so could someone having a bump on the head and being given a couple of paracetemol in A&E after being taken there by an overly cautious parent or teacher.

I have no doubt that Prof Pollock’s report took great care in defining its terms, but as the media reports didn’t bother boring us with those details, we can’t really make a judgment. As for the professor’s call to ban scrums and high tackles (er, they already are banned, Prof) this, I suspect, is down to a scientific technique known as Justifying Hours of Research by Getting Your Name in the Paper. This technique was pioneered by the Dept Of Stating The Blindingly Obvious at Oxbridge University. Readers will probably remember their reports revealing that pretty girls get chatted up more than ugly ones and eating cakes makes you fat.

But even if those 37 ‘injuries’ were quite nasty, rather than a case of Bladdersthorpe Minor having a bit of a blub because it was cold and raining and Mr Snapes was being beastly, things aren’t actually as bad as they might seem. Elsewhere in the report we discover that the injury rate is a little under one per 100 player hours. That means one injury for every 80 complete matches a player takes part in. I would imagine that it

would take three or four years for a school child to rack up that many games. And remember, half of those injuries weren’t serious enough to warrant a trip to hospital, even in these days of overly protective parents and teachers terrorised by the no win no fee vultures.

If anything, it would appear to me that school rugby is a lot safer than many parents think. How may father’s plans to nurture the next Jonny Wilkinson have been frustrated by maternal nightmares of broken noses and cauliflower ears? I think Prof Pollock has done rugby-loving fathers the world over a favour. All you need do is put your own spin on the good professor’s report and present it to your spouse. Hell, rugby’s probably safer than soccer. And okay, young Brandon may end up looking like Danny Grewcock, but it could be worse. If you let him play Wendyball he may end up looking like Wayne Rooney.