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Background Professional rugby union is a fast-paced collision sport with a high rate of injury. With the tackle often being a direct and forceful contact between opposing players at the shoulder level, it is a typical injury location. Objective To describe shoulder match and training injury rates, diagnosis, severity, and mechanisms in professional men's rugby over 19 seasons. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Professional Rugby Union (2002/2003 – 2021/2022). Participants Elite male athletes participating in a professional rugby league. Data were collected from all participating teams during each season of play (12/13 teams per season for 19 seasons). Interventions/Risk Factors Match and training exposure, as well as injuries were collected by club staff. Main Outcome Measures Shoulder-related injuries included any clavicular, scapular, acromioclavicular joint, rotator cuff, or shoulder joint, and surrounding tissue impairment. Any injury resulting in the athlete being unable to participate in rugby for >24 hours after the day of injury were included. Results A match shoulder injury rate of 9.01 per 1000 match-hours (n=1330) was observed. The training shoulder injury rate was 0.15 per 1000 training hours (n=362). Shoulder injury diagnoses most frequently involved the acromioclavicular joint (n=595, 35%), dislocations and instability (n=432, 27%), and impingement/rotator cuff injury (318, 19%). The primary injury pathologies based on orchard code were ligament injuries (n=675, 39%), cartilage injuries (n=149, 9%), and muscle contusions (n=143, 8%). Time-loss due to shoulder injury was a median of 15 days (IQR 5–43 days). The mechanism of most shoulder injuries was tackling (n=592, 35%) or being tackled (n=419, 25%). Conclusions Shoulder injuries resulted in substantial time-loss from sport. The injury rates were similar to what has been previously reported. With such little change in match and training injury rates observed, novel training strategies and policies to prevent shoulder injury merits further investigation and innovation avenues.
Gibson et al. (Fri,) studied this question.