Don't get me wrong i love this game and think its the best in the world but analysing the recent injuries to players of the last few years is it fair on there bodies,young enthusiastic kids beefed up to the max full time training running at each other from 10 meter's is it fair on them?.You only have to look at the number of shoulder injuries of late to conclude that impact levels are extremely high. Now i am no killjoy ban boxing type character but when these blokes are in there 40's hobbling around as unknowns and have abused there bodies for our entertainment is it fair?,
would a 5 meter rule change help or would it slow the game down too much i don't know .It might be just me getting a guilt trip paying just £179 a year for a season pass to see some players earn a living, but with perhaps long term consiquensies (sorry spelling) and coupled with the tragedies at wakefield .Rant over and a big thankyou to all RL players the world over for the entertainment and bravery week in week out

It is hard on their bodies but they do it for a living (maybe not enough) but if the players don't want to play then they don't have to.

fair point but could the game be less stressfull on their bodies without a compromise on entertainment standards?

There was something about this the week before the cup fixtures in one of the red tops.

I scoffed it off with a chuckle then, and I do now.

its part of the game and the players know this before they embark on a career in the game - if they dont like it they can give the game up - no one makes them do it

tag rugby, you could have girlies playing as well then

Just become a dad and maybe getting soft

I see mr wilkin publicly stated more or less the same thing are you still chuckling

He knew the risks of the job when he took it up.

Like a fireman knows he may die in a fire when he takes the job.

Well there are plenty of risks but obviously the players love the game and the physicality or they would have quit a long time ago.

They get paid to do a job, and paid alot better than our Firemen/police not even mention our lads and lasses in the armed forces. I never want a player to get hurt, but its part of the job.

But my point being can you make the game less stressfull on the body but just as fast and entertaining by a simple rule change,its always been a physical game however i remember games in the 80's 90's being just as good with less injuries

A five metre rule would make the game ridiculous and extremely boring. Teams get away with offside with the ten metre rule now - we'd probably end up having defending players in the attacking line almost as soon as they'd played the ball

The other thing that has to be said is what has happened with Adam Watene and Leon Walker is tragic, very tragic, what happened with Joe Westerman was scary, BUT, these are very rare occurrences, just they've all happened in a short period of time.

We're lucky there aren't more serious injuries, but the same goes for rugby union, gridiron, any physical sport such as ours. How can you take out the intensity when you are dealing with professional sportsmen who have all the advantages of modern training techniques, diet and recovery to keep them playing week in, week out at the highest possible performance levels?

The two deaths are tragic, but werent caused by impacts in rugby. Injuries insport will always happen and a 5 mtr rule instead of ten would ruin the game IMO, but we could trial it for one round.

Very true, but there was the report in The Sun (I know) in the week after Walker's death which made the same point. Didn't we have 5m before?

Players know what they are letting themselves in for and know that somewhere down the line they will be injured, but nowadays Rugby league is a collision sport as opposed to a contact sport and players today are getting bigger and faster, meaning that hits get bigger. That coupled with playing in the summer means that after a hit they then fall onto firm ground, so who knows what health problems todays players are storing for themselves in the future with the high number of joint injuries that they get now.

As players retire and get older we may see 40-50 year old former SL players with the mobility of 70-80 year olds as the likelihood of players suffering from arthritis and the need for joint replacements increases. If that does happen though players will look back and won't have any regrets about what they chose to do for a living.

the quote/story in the sun was made by the salford scout (iirc) who first spotted leon walker, saying that he'd been on at rfl bosses to change the rule for a while. the pro's know the risks and they get paid. the amatuers dont get paid and run the same risks! my knees are completely knackered and i'm only 32, but i'll keep plodding on

It's not the physically demanding nature of the game that needs adjusting but the recovery time you give these blokes. Unfortunately, we live in an age when TV companies have more influence over the fixture lists of all professional sports than those in the know when it comes to measuring the risk to players.

- but TV companies pay the wages, so...

i think this leads me straight towards the great paradox of the modern game padding!

Modern players earn money for what they do and some earn a fair amount compared to other dangerous occupations. however one of the things they do is wear padding to protect themselves against injury. in much the same way as clubs force creatine onto players (it bulks the cells with water and acts like a cushion, amongst other benefits)

if you look at the history of contact sports the injury rate has increased after the legalisation of padding. a study from edinburgh uni in 1999 found that after RU leagalised padding the injury rate went up over 500% in one season.

their conclusion because the player hears the word padding they psycologicall think protection, and go into tackles harder and with poorer technique leading to injuries.

are there more shoulder injuries now than before? or is it that due to the net and modern media coverage we are just more aware of them?

as for a 5m rule i can see the logic in your argument. players now are generally faster stronger and heavier than 5 years ago leading to greater forces at the moment of impact.

instead of wasting research money on the memory of a goldfish perhaps some sporty types should do a study into the forces generated in a head on tackle. if due to the increase in size and mass of players this force is now getting towards a dangerous level then there will be no choice but to depower it somehow.

If not then leave it alone

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy has very little to do with a 5m offside rule.

And whoever 'remembered' fewer injuries in the 90s... really?

I'm sure there was a report in Aus about this and they worked out that one particular tackle had the equivalent of 10Gs of force produced. Though this is just from memory and may be completely wrong.

See, I don't agree with that point. Years ago, we used to have midweek games and everything, yet now we have one game per week, apart from Easter.

There are many clubs who also play on Friday nights irrespective of whether they are on TV, and therefore it can be the clubs who make the decision that they will get less recovery time.

who mentioned hypertrophic cardiomyopathy? granted this is usually attributed to the sudden death of many young athletes but it is not relevant to this discussions. i was making the connection between a 5m offside rule reducing the speed of both players at the moment of impact thus reducing the forces.

I think the main reason we are seeing more of certain injuries is because of the interchange we now have. Large very fit young men who if had played under the older rules would not have been able to last 80 minuets even with todays training, (Paleasena for one) they would have tired quickly & become liabilitys not assets as they are in the modern game.
The 5 meter/yard rule only worked as the room appeared when the players got tired & gaps opened the close proxcimity of the defence did encourage better ball handling skills but the knowlage & conditioning was no where as scientific as it is now. One other factor to think about is that people of my age (near bus pass time) excepted risks & injury as part of our working lives (how stupid we were) we were also better looked after by the health service as there was no team of lawyers waiting to sue at the first opertunity.