Trends in time-loss injuries during the 2011-2016 South African Rugby Youth Weeks

Area of Science:

• Sports Medicine
• Injury Epidemiology
• Rugby Union Safety

Background:

• Youth rugby in South Africa has a high incidence of injuries.
• The SA Rugby Youth Week tournaments offer a valuable dataset for injury surveillance.
• Understanding injury trends and risk factors is crucial for player safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze changes in time-loss injury rates in youth rugby from 2011-2016.
• To compare injury incidence across different age groups (U13, U16, U18).
• To identify specific injury risk factors, including phases of play and injury types.

Main Methods:

• Data collected from SA Rugby Youth Week tournaments (2011-2016).
• Recorded all time-loss injuries across four age-group tournaments.
• Calculated injury incidence densities (IID) and used Poisson regression for analysis.

Main Results:

• Overall IID was 20.4 injuries per 1000 player hours.
• Injury risk decreased with increasing age; U13 and U16 had higher IID than U18.
• Tackling was the highest-risk phase of play (IID 7.4/1000 player hours); CNS/PNS injuries (head/neck) were most frequent.

Conclusions:

• Older youth rugby players in this tournament structure experienced lower injury rates.
• Tackling remains the primary phase for injuries across all age groups.
• An increase in central/peripheral nervous system injuries contributes significantly to the overall incidence.