Peter Milburn

Match and training injuries in rugby league: a review of published studies

Rugby league is an international collision sport played by junior, amateur, semiprofessional and professional players. The game requires participants to be involved in physically demanding activities such as running, tackling, passing and sprinting, and musculoskeletal injuries are common. A review of injuries in junior and senior rugby league players published in Sports Medicine in 2004 reported that injuries to the head and neck and muscular injuries were common in senior rugby league players, while fractures and injuries to the knee were common in junior players. This current review updates the descriptive data on rugby league epidemiology and adds information for semiprofessional, amateur and junior levels of participation in both match and training environments using studies identified through searches of PubMed, CINHAL, Ovid, MEDLINE, SCOPUS and SportDiscus® databases.This review also discusses the issues surrounding the definitions of injury exposure, injury rate, injury severity and classification of injury site and type for rugby league injuries. Studies on the incidence of injuries in rugby league have suffered from inconsistencies in the injury definitions utilized. Some studies on rugby league injuries have utilized a criterion of a missed match as an injury definition, total injury incidences or a combination of both timeloss and non-time-loss injuries, while other studies have incorporated a medical treatment injury definition. Efforts to establish a standard definition for rugby league injuries have been difficult, especially as some researchers were not in favour of a definition that was all-encompassing and enabled non-time-loss injuries to be recorded. A definition of rugby league injury has been suggested based on agreement by a group of international researchers.The majority of injuries occur in the match environment, with rates typically increasing as the playing level increases. However, professional level injury rates were reportedly less than semiprofessional participation. Only a few studies have reported training injuries in rugby league, where injury rates were reported to be less than match injuries. Approximately 16–30% of all rugby league injuries have been reported as severe, which places demands upon other team members and, if the player returns to playing too early, places them at an increased risk of further injuries. Early research in rugby league identified that ligament and joint injuries were the common injuries, occurring primarily to the knee. More recently, studies have shown a change in anatomical injury sites at all levels of participation. Although the lower limb was the frequent injury region reported previously, the shoulder has now been reported to be the most common injury site. Changes in injury site and type could be used to prompt further research and development of injury reduction programmes to readdress the issue of injuries that occur as a result of participation in rugby league activities. Further research is warranted at all participation levels of rugby league in both the match and training environments to confirm the strongest risk factors for injury.

Rugby league injuries in New Zealand: a review of 8 years of Accident Compensation Corporation injury entitlement claims and costs

Aim: This paper provides an overview of the epidemiology of rugby league injuries and associated costs in New Zealand requiring medical treatment. Method: New Zealand national Accident Compensation Corporation injury data for the period 1999 to 2007 were searched for rugby league injury cases. Data were analysed by demographics, body region, nature/severity of injury, and medical procedure and costs. Results: A total of 5941 injury entitlement claims were recorded over the study period with a significant decrease observed in the injury rate between the 1999–2000 and 2002–2003 reporting years. The total cost of the injuries for the study period was

Tribology, friction and traction: understanding shoe-surface interaction

42 822 048 (equivalent to £15 916 072). The mean (SD) number of injury entitlement claims per year was 743 (271) and yearly cost was

Regional bone geometry of the tibia in triathletes and stress reactions—An observational study

5 352 760 (£1 989 880) (

Training habits and injuries of masters' level football players: a preliminary report.

2 485 535 (£923 994)). The knee was the most commonly reported injury site (225 per 1000 entitlement claims;

Reliability of a high accuracy image-based system for 3D modelling of the medial longitudinal arch during gait

8 750 147 (£3 252 020)) and soft tissue injuries were the most common injury types (474 per 1000 entitlement claims;

Women's rugby league injury claims and costs in New Zealand

17 324 214 (£6 438 599)). Accounting for only 1.8% of total injury entitlement claims, concussion/brain injuries accounted for 6.3% of injury entitlement costs and had the highest mean cost per claim (

The interaction between skill, postures, forces and back pain in wool handling

25 347 (£9420)). The upper and lower arm recorded the highest mean injury site claim cost of

A video-based imaging technique for accurate foot measures during different weight bearing conditions

43 096 (£16 016) per claim. The 25–29 age group recorded 27.7% of total injury entitlement claims and 29.6% of total injury entitlement costs, which was slightly more than the 20–24 age group (27.3% claims; 24.7% costs). Nearly 15% of total moderate to serious injury entitlement claims and 20% of total costs were recorded from participants 35 years or older. Discussion: This study identified that the knee was the most common injury site and soft tissue injuries were the most common injury type requiring medical treatment, which is consistent with other international studies on rugby league epidemiology. This study also highlights that the rate of injury and the average age of injured rugby league players increased over time. The high cost of concussion/brain injuries is a cause for concern as it reflects the severity of the injuries. Conclusion: Injury prevention programmes for rugby league should focus on reducing the risk of concussion/brain injury and knee and soft tissue injury, and should target participants in the 20–30 years old age range. More longitudinal epidemiological studies with specific details on injury mechanisms and participation data are warranted to further identify the injury circumstances surrounding participation in rugby league activities.

Plantar surface contour using close-range photogrammetry

Friction has been studied since the early investigations of Leonardo da Vinci, Amontons, Coulomb, and Euler, and many experimental investigations have been used to measure the friction force between contact surfaces. However, in the case of non-homogenous and different surfaces commonly experienced in sports, all of the laws of friction are violated. The area of tribology provides an opportunity to describe the relationship between footwear and the surface in engineering terms and explain how traction is generated on sports surfaces. The paper firstly examines the mechanisms used to explain dry friction, and uses these to explain the complex mechanisms associated with field footwear-surface interaction.