Epidemiology of injuries in English professional rugby union: part 1 match injuries

To undertake a detailed epidemiological study of training injuries sustained by professional rugby union players in order to define their incidence, nature, severity, and causes.

A two season prospective design was used to study training injuries associated with 502 rugby union players at 11 English Premiership clubs. Team clinicians reported all training injuries on a weekly basis and provided details of the location, diagnosis, severity, and mechanism of each injury. Training exposures for individual players were recorded on a weekly basis. Loss of time from training and match play was used as the definition of an injury.