RugbyRebels

Peej wrote:

Gloskarlos wrote:a) I coach in Royal Leamington Spa don't you know...... (old Glos habits do die hard tho)

b) they started tackling at u9.

c) they are now u11 - which makes them 10 (or 11)

d) at what age DO ring of steel, tower of power, cheek to cheek and sliding down become funny?

At what age do they stop being funny?

47?

Not sure what side he was supposed to put his head of this.




(No punishment what so ever).

Gloskarlos wrote:

Peej wrote:

Gloskarlos wrote:a) I coach in Royal Leamington Spa don't you know...... (old Glos habits do die hard tho)

b) they started tackling at u9.

c) they are now u11 - which makes them 10 (or 11)

d) at what age DO ring of steel, tower of power, cheek to cheek and sliding down become funny?

At what age do they stop being funny?

47?

No must be way higher than that.

twitchy wrote:Not sure what side he was supposed to put his head of this.




(No punishment what so ever).

Oof!

twitchy wrote:Not sure what side he was supposed to put his head of this.




(No punishment what so ever).

Okay, fair point. Hadn't realised that that was what had put him out this time.

Ref needs shooting. A collision might have been momentum, but putting the shoulder in really wasn't.

Puja

Today’s Times:

RFU low tackle trial stopped due to concussion rise

The RFU’s experiment to test whether a lower tackle could make the game safer has been abandoned after statistics showing that concussion numbers during the trial had, in fact, risen.

If nothing else, the RFU has proved how hard it will be to make the game safer. By altering the safety protocol in one area, the trial law made players more vulnerable elsewhere.

Injury statistics have been increasing in rugby union, with concussion the most prevalent. The present application of the law defines an illegal high tackle to be above the line across the shoulders. The RFU trial took the line down to across the armpits. It took place during the 36 opening games of the Championship Cup competition this season and has been stopped after the group stage, with the seven knockout games remaining.

The trial succeeded in a part of its objective. There was a 41 per cent decrease in the number of tackles where contact was made with the head or neck of the ball-carrier. Nevertheless, overall concussion numbers rose.

The RFU had been concerned that, by bringing down the tackle height, more tacklers could suffer concussions because their heads hit knees or hips. However, this did not transpire.


The spike in concussions came from ball-carriers running off short passes from the scrum half where, typically, the carrier has a low body position. The result, in these areas, was that more heads and necks came into the tackle and, thus, more concussions.

The trial was terminated in part because it is so hard for players to switch from one tackle interpretation to another and, in part, because the RFU’s conclusions from the trial were already strong enough.

Dean Ryan, the RFU’s head of international player development, said: “We created something very different from what we expected.” Simon Kemp, the RFU’s director of medical services, said: “This shows that a change in the law reducing the permitted height of the tackle can be refereed and that it does bring down the height of the tackle. It can be done. However this overall lowering of the tackle height didn’t reduce the overall risk of concussion in the tackle in this trial.

“Where this has moved my thinking on is that the solutions for concussion risk in the tackle are likely to be dependent on where on the field the tackle takes place. The height initiative is likely to be most effective in open play. How we manage the risk of the ball off nine or ten [scrum half or fly half], where there is less space and the ball-carrier and tackler are closer together, may need a different approach.”

Though the trial did not produce an immediate solution to rugby’s concussion problem, it is an important step along the way. Kemp said: “This is the start of the journey.”

Puja wrote:

twitchy wrote:Not sure what side he was supposed to put his head of this.




(No punishment what so ever).

Okay, fair point. Hadn't realised that that was what had put him out this time.

Ref needs shooting. A collision might have been momentum, but putting the shoulder in really wasn't.

Puja

Putting the shoulder in? The guy lands with one leg, and he's crashing into Halfpenny. We may need to stop reckless chargers, but whilst it's legal, I don't see that the player has done anything wrong.

Raggs wrote:

Puja wrote:

twitchy wrote:Not sure what side he was supposed to put his head of this.




(No punishment what so ever).

Okay, fair point. Hadn't realised that that was what had put him out this time.

Ref needs shooting. A collision might have been momentum, but putting the shoulder in really wasn't.

Puja

Putting the shoulder in? The guy lands with one leg, and he's crashing into Halfpenny. We may need to stop reckless chargers, but whilst it's legal, I don't see that the player has done anything wrong.

He twists to connect shoulder first. I get that some of that is going to be self-protection, but it's not good. In addition, rewatching that wide shot, he is always going to hit Halfpenny - he jumps into him - and has a 1000-1 chance of getting near the ball. That's not a charge down that's ended up with him accidentally stumbling into him, that's an attempt to block his chase. I doubt it was intended to knock him out, but it was definitely foul play.

Puja

Puja wrote:

Raggs wrote:

Puja wrote:
Okay, fair point. Hadn't realised that that was what had put him out this time.

Ref needs shooting. A collision might have been momentum, but putting the shoulder in really wasn't.

Puja

Putting the shoulder in? The guy lands with one leg, and he's crashing into Halfpenny. We may need to stop reckless chargers, but whilst it's legal, I don't see that the player has done anything wrong.

He twists to connect shoulder first. I get that some of that is going to be self-protection, but it's not good. In addition, rewatching that wide shot, he is always going to hit Halfpenny - he jumps into him - and has a 1000-1 chance of getting near the ball. That's not a charge down that's ended up with him accidentally stumbling into him, that's an attempt to block his chase. I doubt it was intended to knock him out, but it was definitely foul play.

Puja

This is why ideally you present the player claiming they're attempting a charge down with your studs and allow them to choose how committed they are to the cheap shot

Likely there's no malicious intent from Kerevi in this instance, but he has lost control and planted a shoulder far too high, it's a red card for me

Mellsblue wrote:Today’s Times:

RFU low tackle trial stopped due to concussion rise

The RFU’s experiment to test whether a lower tackle could make the game safer has been abandoned after statistics showing that concussion numbers during the trial had, in fact, risen.

If nothing else, the RFU has proved how hard it will be to make the game safer. By altering the safety protocol in one area, the trial law made players more vulnerable elsewhere.

Injury statistics have been increasing in rugby union, with concussion the most prevalent. The present application of the law defines an illegal high tackle to be above the line across the shoulders. The RFU trial took the line down to across the armpits. It took place during the 36 opening games of the Championship Cup competition this season and has been stopped after the group stage, with the seven knockout games remaining.

The trial succeeded in a part of its objective. There was a 41 per cent decrease in the number of tackles where contact was made with the head or neck of the ball-carrier. Nevertheless, overall concussion numbers rose.

The RFU had been concerned that, by bringing down the tackle height, more tacklers could suffer concussions because their heads hit knees or hips. However, this did not transpire.


The spike in concussions came from ball-carriers running off short passes from the scrum half where, typically, the carrier has a low body position. The result, in these areas, was that more heads and necks came into the tackle and, thus, more concussions.

The trial was terminated in part because it is so hard for players to switch from one tackle interpretation to another and, in part, because the RFU’s conclusions from the trial were already strong enough.

Dean Ryan, the RFU’s head of international player development, said: “We created something very different from what we expected.” Simon Kemp, the RFU’s director of medical services, said: “This shows that a change in the law reducing the permitted height of the tackle can be refereed and that it does bring down the height of the tackle. It can be done. However this overall lowering of the tackle height didn’t reduce the overall risk of concussion in the tackle in this trial.

“Where this has moved my thinking on is that the solutions for concussion risk in the tackle are likely to be dependent on where on the field the tackle takes place. The height initiative is likely to be most effective in open play. How we manage the risk of the ball off nine or ten [scrum half or fly half], where there is less space and the ball-carrier and tackler are closer together, may need a different approach.”

Though the trial did not produce an immediate solution to rugby’s concussion problem, it is an important step along the way. Kemp said: “This is the start of the journey.”

I'm not really sure this is solid science. For a start, as the report mentions, it's bloody difficult swapping from one set of laws to another from game to game. I would imagine that was the major driving force behind ending it early. Secondly, I'm not sure how people carrying low when taking short balls is affected by this trial - would they not be carrying low with the old laws as well and be just as likely to get hit in the head? Obviously this is just a newspaper report and elides a lot of the details, but I'm not convinced by that explanation at all.

Puja

Rugby officials attempt law change, players and coaches refuse to adapt, rugby officials give up

Puja wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:Today’s Times:

RFU low tackle trial stopped due to concussion rise

The RFU’s experiment to test whether a lower tackle could make the game safer has been abandoned after statistics showing that concussion numbers during the trial had, in fact, risen.

If nothing else, the RFU has proved how hard it will be to make the game safer. By altering the safety protocol in one area, the trial law made players more vulnerable elsewhere.

Injury statistics have been increasing in rugby union, with concussion the most prevalent. The present application of the law defines an illegal high tackle to be above the line across the shoulders. The RFU trial took the line down to across the armpits. It took place during the 36 opening games of the Championship Cup competition this season and has been stopped after the group stage, with the seven knockout games remaining.

The trial succeeded in a part of its objective. There was a 41 per cent decrease in the number of tackles where contact was made with the head or neck of the ball-carrier. Nevertheless, overall concussion numbers rose.

The RFU had been concerned that, by bringing down the tackle height, more tacklers could suffer concussions because their heads hit knees or hips. However, this did not transpire.


The spike in concussions came from ball-carriers running off short passes from the scrum half where, typically, the carrier has a low body position. The result, in these areas, was that more heads and necks came into the tackle and, thus, more concussions.

The trial was terminated in part because it is so hard for players to switch from one tackle interpretation to another and, in part, because the RFU’s conclusions from the trial were already strong enough.

Dean Ryan, the RFU’s head of international player development, said: “We created something very different from what we expected.” Simon Kemp, the RFU’s director of medical services, said: “This shows that a change in the law reducing the permitted height of the tackle can be refereed and that it does bring down the height of the tackle. It can be done. However this overall lowering of the tackle height didn’t reduce the overall risk of concussion in the tackle in this trial.

“Where this has moved my thinking on is that the solutions for concussion risk in the tackle are likely to be dependent on where on the field the tackle takes place. The height initiative is likely to be most effective in open play. How we manage the risk of the ball off nine or ten [scrum half or fly half], where there is less space and the ball-carrier and tackler are closer together, may need a different approach.”

Though the trial did not produce an immediate solution to rugby’s concussion problem, it is an important step along the way. Kemp said: “This is the start of the journey.”

I'm not really sure this is solid science. For a start, as the report mentions, it's bloody difficult swapping from one set of laws to another from game to game. I would imagine that was the major driving force behind ending it early. Secondly, I'm not sure how people carrying low when taking short balls is affected by this trial - would they not be carrying low with the old laws as well and be just as likely to get hit in the head? Obviously this is just a newspaper report and elides a lot of the details, but I'm not convinced by that explanation at all.

Puja

Head and neck contacts were down during the trial, so players were adapting.

I think the ‘carrying low off short balls’ has been an issue for the tackler, who has been trying to get even lower than the ball carrier causing a lot of head on head and head on shoulder collisions.

Another tragedy. I’m not sure whether it’s just the media now focussing on such cases but the number of deaths this season is not a good look (for want of a phrase with a lot more gravitas).

http://www.talkingrugbyunion.co.uk/samo ... /22117.htm

My understanding of the work done by Lancaster Sports Science is that in the tackle situation, most injuries to head and shoulders (including concussion) in rugby are to the tackler (NOT the tackled player)from contact with the hip, knee and lower leg of the ball carrier. Given that this was known 2 years ago, it begs the question why the tackle height was the biggest thing they were looking at! When you look at Pat Lambie's retirement and Leigh halfpenny's problems, they don't come from being tackled!

oldbackrow wrote:My understanding of the work done by Lancaster Sports Science is that in the tackle situation, most injuries to head and shoulders (including concussion) in rugby are to the tackler (NOT the tackled player)from contact with the hip, knee and lower leg of the ball carrier. Given that this was known 2 years ago, it begs the question why the tackle height was the biggest thing they were looking at! When you look at Pat Lambie's retirement and Leigh halfpenny's problems, they don't come from being tackled!

That's not what the IRB's work (which is the most comprehensive and scientific study I've seen) says - they say most concussive injuries to tacklers come from going high and getting head on head or head on shoulder.

Puja

Puja wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:Today’s Times:

RFU low tackle trial stopped due to concussion rise

The RFU’s experiment to test whether a lower tackle could make the game safer has been abandoned after statistics showing that concussion numbers during the trial had, in fact, risen.

If nothing else, the RFU has proved how hard it will be to make the game safer. By altering the safety protocol in one area, the trial law made players more vulnerable elsewhere.

Injury statistics have been increasing in rugby union, with concussion the most prevalent. The present application of the law defines an illegal high tackle to be above the line across the shoulders. The RFU trial took the line down to across the armpits. It took place during the 36 opening games of the Championship Cup competition this season and has been stopped after the group stage, with the seven knockout games remaining.

The trial succeeded in a part of its objective. There was a 41 per cent decrease in the number of tackles where contact was made with the head or neck of the ball-carrier. Nevertheless, overall concussion numbers rose.

The RFU had been concerned that, by bringing down the tackle height, more tacklers could suffer concussions because their heads hit knees or hips. However, this did not transpire.


The spike in concussions came from ball-carriers running off short passes from the scrum half where, typically, the carrier has a low body position. The result, in these areas, was that more heads and necks came into the tackle and, thus, more concussions.

The trial was terminated in part because it is so hard for players to switch from one tackle interpretation to another and, in part, because the RFU’s conclusions from the trial were already strong enough.

Dean Ryan, the RFU’s head of international player development, said: “We created something very different from what we expected.” Simon Kemp, the RFU’s director of medical services, said: “This shows that a change in the law reducing the permitted height of the tackle can be refereed and that it does bring down the height of the tackle. It can be done. However this overall lowering of the tackle height didn’t reduce the overall risk of concussion in the tackle in this trial.

“Where this has moved my thinking on is that the solutions for concussion risk in the tackle are likely to be dependent on where on the field the tackle takes place. The height initiative is likely to be most effective in open play. How we manage the risk of the ball off nine or ten [scrum half or fly half], where there is less space and the ball-carrier and tackler are closer together, may need a different approach.”

Though the trial did not produce an immediate solution to rugby’s concussion problem, it is an important step along the way. Kemp said: “This is the start of the journey.”

I'm not really sure this is solid science. For a start, as the report mentions, it's bloody difficult swapping from one set of laws to another from game to game. I would imagine that was the major driving force behind ending it early. Secondly, I'm not sure how people carrying low when taking short balls is affected by this trial - would they not be carrying low with the old laws as well and be just as likely to get hit in the head? Obviously this is just a newspaper report and elides a lot of the details, but I'm not convinced by that explanation at all.

Puja

The trouble with concussive injuries is it is not as simple as head hits. Angle plays a massive part as it is all about how the brain floating in its shell moves to make contact with said shell.Add in individual variance and we're going to get into diminishing returns.

For me the best thing we can do is focus on symptoms, early diagnosis and proper treatment / return to play protocols.

Puja wrote:

oldbackrow wrote:My understanding of the work done by Lancaster Sports Science is that in the tackle situation, most injuries to head and shoulders (including concussion) in rugby are to the tackler (NOT the tackled player)from contact with the hip, knee and lower leg of the ball carrier. Given that this was known 2 years ago, it begs the question why the tackle height was the biggest thing they were looking at! When you look at Pat Lambie's retirement and Leigh halfpenny's problems, they don't come from being tackled!

That's not what the IRB's work (which is the most comprehensive and scientific study I've seen) says - they say most concussive injuries to tacklers come from going high and getting head on head or head on shoulder.

Puja

Yep, highest rate of concussion came from upright tackles, mostly for the tacklers.

Of course its going to be tacklers who have more injuries when players with the ball almost have completely free reign with what they do going into a tackle, with stiff arm fends being the only thing that can get you a red card.

Dropping the shoulder, using your arms to bosh, running with high knees and any other tactics are all legal and you would lose alot with rugby as a spectacle if these things were taken out, but there lies the problem.

With this whole argument on low tackles vs high tackles in what causes the most concussions, I would suggest the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The majority of tackles these days are chest high, which will therefore predispose to more chances of concussion which the data shows as the majority being from high tackles, but purely anecdotally I feel a greater proportion of low tackles may result in concussion, and I think if theres a massive attitude to only tackle below the hips, the problem may be made even greater, as the only way to make a big hit would be to cannonball yourself at someones knees or hip.

Maybe everyone needs to be wearing those sumo suits.

I mean the big inflatable fat-suits not the giant nappy things. Just to be clear.

Epaminondas Pules wrote:

Puja wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:Today’s Times:

RFU low tackle trial stopped due to concussion rise

The RFU’s experiment to test whether a lower tackle could make the game safer has been abandoned after statistics showing that concussion numbers during the trial had, in fact, risen.

If nothing else, the RFU has proved how hard it will be to make the game safer. By altering the safety protocol in one area, the trial law made players more vulnerable elsewhere.

Injury statistics have been increasing in rugby union, with concussion the most prevalent. The present application of the law defines an illegal high tackle to be above the line across the shoulders. The RFU trial took the line down to across the armpits. It took place during the 36 opening games of the Championship Cup competition this season and has been stopped after the group stage, with the seven knockout games remaining.

The trial succeeded in a part of its objective. There was a 41 per cent decrease in the number of tackles where contact was made with the head or neck of the ball-carrier. Nevertheless, overall concussion numbers rose.

The RFU had been concerned that, by bringing down the tackle height, more tacklers could suffer concussions because their heads hit knees or hips. However, this did not transpire.


The spike in concussions came from ball-carriers running off short passes from the scrum half where, typically, the carrier has a low body position. The result, in these areas, was that more heads and necks came into the tackle and, thus, more concussions.

The trial was terminated in part because it is so hard for players to switch from one tackle interpretation to another and, in part, because the RFU’s conclusions from the trial were already strong enough.

Dean Ryan, the RFU’s head of international player development, said: “We created something very different from what we expected.” Simon Kemp, the RFU’s director of medical services, said: “This shows that a change in the law reducing the permitted height of the tackle can be refereed and that it does bring down the height of the tackle. It can be done. However this overall lowering of the tackle height didn’t reduce the overall risk of concussion in the tackle in this trial.

“Where this has moved my thinking on is that the solutions for concussion risk in the tackle are likely to be dependent on where on the field the tackle takes place. The height initiative is likely to be most effective in open play. How we manage the risk of the ball off nine or ten [scrum half or fly half], where there is less space and the ball-carrier and tackler are closer together, may need a different approach.”

Though the trial did not produce an immediate solution to rugby’s concussion problem, it is an important step along the way. Kemp said: “This is the start of the journey.”

I'm not really sure this is solid science. For a start, as the report mentions, it's bloody difficult swapping from one set of laws to another from game to game. I would imagine that was the major driving force behind ending it early. Secondly, I'm not sure how people carrying low when taking short balls is affected by this trial - would they not be carrying low with the old laws as well and be just as likely to get hit in the head? Obviously this is just a newspaper report and elides a lot of the details, but I'm not convinced by that explanation at all.

Puja

The trouble with concussive injuries is it is not as simple as head hits. Angle plays a massive part as it is all about how the brain floating in its shell moves to make contact with said shell.Add in individual variance and we're going to get into diminishing returns.

For me the best thing we can do is focus on symptoms, early diagnosis and proper treatment / return to play protocols.

That is exactly right. Shear stress and movement of the brain around normal axes as a result of raid acceleration/deceleration. Episodes of this nature may be classified as "mild" trauma, but repeated episodes have serious long term consequences. Trying to remove the point of contact from the head alone is just not in synch with what neurology and physics have made apparent for at least the last 15 years. The game wouldn't need to be sanitised, at last at the senior/elite level, if the technology put into video analysis, physiology and biometrics for performance were applied to a threshold force definition for individual collisions. They already have MDs monitoring video for HIA calls, so why not get with up to date technology. A professional sport could be a fantastic driver for development of something that has broad clinical application.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15179853














Conclusions
In this study, actual field incidents from American football were reconstructed using a sophisticated finite element head model. Head kinematics measured from helmeted Hybrid III dummy heads were used as input to drive the FE model. The resulting mechanical response parameters, including the intracranial pres- sure and brain shear stress predicted by the model, were chosen as potential injury indicators of MTBI. Statistical analyses were per- formed to assess the relationships between injury outcome and brain tissue responses or head kinematics. Some injury predictors and injury tolerances for MTBI were proposed and were com- pared to the other studies in the literature. The following conclu- sions can be drawn from current investigation:
1. Intracranial pressure results from the model showed a typi- cal coup and contrecoup pattern throughout the brain. The loca- tion and level of peak pressure in the brain were not well corre- lated with the sites of concussive brain injury. However, the magnitude of the resulting pressure reflected the severity and ex- tent of resulting tissue response to a given impact. Therefore, intracranial pressure can serve as a global response indicator for head injury.
2. High shear stress concentrations were found to be localized in the upper brainstem and thalamus regions. The induced shear stress may alter brain function leading to a mild brain injury. The shear stress generated at the central core region of the brain is primarily related to the geometrical feature and material compo- sition of the brainstem structure.
3. Based on linear regression analyses, translational head ac- celeration had a greater influence on intracranial pressure re-sponses in comparison with rotational acceleration. Shear stress in the central part of the brain was more sensitive to rotational ac- celeration than to translational acceleration.
4. Based on linear logistic regression analyses, the predicted shear stress response in the upper brainstem was the best injury predictor over other brain response parameters, such as the exist- ing injury criteria HIC, GSI, and the head acceleration. A shear stress of 7.8 kPa was proposed as the tolerance level for a 50% probability of sustaining a MTBI.
5. Injury tolerance for MTBI based on head kinematics and
HIC15 can be estimated. If the head was exposed to a combined
translational and rotational acceleration, with an impact duration
of between 10 to 30 ms, the suggested tolerable reversible brain
injury level was less than 85 G, for translational acceleration. For
the rotational acceleration, it was less than 6.0 103 rad/s2 . The
suggested HIC value was 240. These values may change as 15
more human data become available."

Awesome info MP. Thanks for posting

It could be worse:

Anyone else seen that Tigers have reported that they currently have 8! players going through concussion protocols at the moment.

That’s....a lot.

Timbo wrote:Anyone else seen that Tigers have reported that they currently have 8! players going through concussion protocols at the moment.

That’s....a lot.

They had three go off last weekend iirc