The NRL's current injury toll is becoming intolerable

So how did players survive in the 60s,70s & early 80s. Working 50+ hours per week, training two nights a week plus a team meeting at the pub ? I think the training regimes imposed by clubs needs a rethink Other athletes, running, swimming, boxing, cycling train hard towards an event but taper to let their body rest before the ultimate push. NRL conditioners have their players at the edge for over 30 weeks, tendons, muscles and joints are at the limit before the game starts. The Roosters have 3 coaches, but they have 5 staff in strength & conditioning ? And some players bring it on themselves, poor tackling technic . Or backs carrying the ball on the inside arm trying to fend across their body with the outside arm and when tackled get twisted like a corkscrew. You can smash a rock with a hammer but not a rubber ball !

The Murray types may be more valuable but a pack full of Murrays will still get run over by a pack with one Murray and a couple of big blokes so I don't really see the overall player weight changing.

You got s problem with your eye? Cook the man some fckn eggs! Barman! Six milkshakes – easy on the ice cream! Tell Jakey you love him.

Not meaning to be disrespectful or belittle the efforts of the Roosters this year, but at the start of the season if you had told me that Cordner or Keary or Friend or Smith or Morris x2 had had a season ending injury, it wouldn't have been that surprising given their age or previous injury history. Collins is the only really surprising one, and obviously the fact that all of the proverbial Roosters have come home to roost at the same time if you take my meaning...

In the words of Jake The Muss Heke , "Too much weights , not enough speed work. "

that's it mate, bodyuilding is about over stressing the muscles so the body is forced to repair itself, and it becomes bigger as a result, now these over stressed muscles are then taxed by wrestling etc. Pec tears - how many are caused because the bench press is the popular exercise, it trains the arms to lift in a certain plane of motion, now their arms are fending off players / being twisted at different angles to the body at angles it hasn't trained. Added to a 110kg fooballer with the ball being manhandled by three 110kg defenders all trying to not just get him to the ground but force him onto is back, with little regard for the position of his ankles, knees or legs as they do it.

Yep, and no tackling, Just call it AFL, yanker

Tony, I don’t have the stats but I reckon there would be a fair correlation between injury increase and increase of ball in play. The ratio might even reflect the same as before 2020 but with more time of active game time then there’s an increase in injury column. I prefer to think that they need to assess some of the rule changes. 6 agains in your own half should just be penalised. It was brought in to solve the deliberate penalty defending your try line. Now the deliberate penalty is given away at the other end of the field……. They haven’t solved the issue, just moved it 90m down field. I also don’t know a coach who wouldn’t want to find touch 30-40m away from tryline to start your set, as opposed to 1 extra tackle when you barely have anyone behind the ball to run it. I also think they should look at reducing interchanges to 6. You already get 8, a free one (which is actually 2) for HIA (if cleared) and the 2 free ones for every “on report” (if that player can return to the field). Not uncommon in a game to actually get 12+ interchanges. Often see outside back come off for a front rower because it’s on report, they go straight back on for another middle forward who’s been out there for 20mins. Less interchanges means more fatigue or more likely players having to gauge themselves to get to a certain point in the game. Everyone like to see more action and game time but it was a sharp increase with little time to adjust. The long way around, less interchanges and reward penalties in your own half. Would be a better balanced game IMO.

The injury issue needs to be really closely examined Jimmy. There are all manner of guys being injured for all manner of reasons and it's tough to know what common denominators there are, outside those injuries that come from a concussion. I wonder for example, if the little blokes are over training their bodies to try and cope with the collisions they have with way bigger guys? I like your suggestion about the restart or penalty, but am not a fan of making a change of rules in isolation. Any rule change needs to be considered on light of other rules, which may need tweaking to accommodate the change, otherwise you could end up with a worse problem, which is exactly what's happened with this 6 again "solution". Agreed there are still plenty of sets which are 5 tackles then a kick, but there is certainly a helluva lot more open play, line breaks and obviously way more tries. V'landys wanted a more open game and the rule changes have certainly achieved that, though the cost in terms of blown out scorelines, fan dissatisfaction, etc, still has to be tallied>Me, I'm just happy we have games to watch.

Thats an interesting take on it. Like evolution we will develop the type of players required for the current rules. I only have a couple of comments. It doesn't seem to be just the big guys getting severely injured.Have a look at the injury lists. It's all types of bodies. If the six again speed up is responsible then this won't change with time. A lot of injuries don't seem to be collision related either. Secondly , even if the type of player evolves, it's the momentum change that a full penalty causes that I believe is the issue. It will still be an issue after players become fitter. Even if we went to a halfway house of six again in your attacking zone and full penalty in your defensive zone it wouod help shift the momentum . Lastly. Have a really good look at any random game this weekend. It's still a 5 tackle then high kick game, anytime you are outside your 20m . I honestly don't think that's changed. Still the evolution argument has merit. I am just not sure I can watch 2 more years of non competetive footy.

I didn't realise there was sport science to support my theory. How to fix it is the problem but as Paul says the leaner types like Cameron Murray can belt out 80 minutes. Blokes like Murray will be the sought after player as time goes on with the 6 again rule.

I don;t think there's a single answer because this is likely to be a multi-faceted issue. There needs to be some serious in-depth analysis done on every injury Tony. When did it happen, ie on the training paddock or during a game (and when during the game), what external factors were involved in helping the occur, what was the time between diagnosis and treatment, were there factors that affected the players recovery, etc. I'd be leery of offering any conclusions/solutions without that sort of detailed information.

I think you've argued a good case for changing the 6 again rule Jimmy but I wonder if that's really necessary? Over the past couple of decades, the game has been getting slower and slower, which brings the really big guys into play because they don't have to worry about tiring, what with the interchanges and speed of the game. All of a sudden the game has become considerably faster and the need for sustained effort for a lot of minutes has increased, yet we still have the big blokes trying to play as they did. They are completely the wrong shape & size for the current game. If we stick with the rules as they are, I think we'll end up with leaner athletes, who have much better endurance but are also nowhere near as big. That means the collisions would be less forceful but the game would be faster and probably more skillful. I'd have thought that's worth aiming for, rather than taking out a rule that will allow that to happen and reverting to rules which were turning League into a 5 tackle-then-high-kick borefest.

Mate, he's a Broncos supporter. We've had an ordinary year but he's had an ordinary 20's decade so far.

Agree kk . Its not difficult to get all the information you suggest. It would inform our decisions greatly.

Very observant Tony. In fact the former Dragons No.7 hasn’t seen much game time for some years ago. Although I am a longtime Easts supporter, I had a healthy respect for players such as Billy Smith, Jimmy Lisle, Noel Kelly & plenty of others when I first started following the game. Enjoyed watching them play as long as they weren’t putting the cleaners through my team.

Excellent jimmmy. We need more explanatory data to disrobe the' 6 again Emperor' Time in Game; Place on field, Clearer explanation for penalty, Analysis for each referee. Analysis for each team. Consequences re penalty to play continuity and scoreboard. The Patterns may at least make us more able to possible improvement.

there is plenty of sport science to support this theory, but how do you fix it? They cant play lighter as they wont be able to compete with the bigger stronger players