Casualty room presentations and schoolboy rugby union

For eight years a casualty station has been operating during competition Rugby Union matches at a large Sydney School. During this time, both diagnosis and treatment have been recorded for every presentation. The casualty station was attended by 556 boys over this period, and approximately 50% of these presentations were for trivial injuries. Forty-three severe injuries occurred, of which most were fractures. The rate of presentation, and the pattern of injury, changed as a greater number of both minor and major injuries than did visitors. There was one injury in boys less than 12 years old, and the greatest incidence of injury was in boys aged from 16 to 18 years. It is concluded that there is a place for casualty services at schoolboy competition games, and that the supervised Rugby Union played in this and comparative school competitions is a reasonably safe game for boys less than 16 years old, to whom issues of schoolboy participation are most applicable.