RugbyRebels

This is now the second board move since I posted this originally; and I still feel it's important, and I don't want to lose what I've written; so whilst I can still find the original...

Why I don't think young front row players should play more than ~600 minutes (~10 starts / 30 benches) 1st class matches per season before their 23rd birthday.

The growth plates (AKA epiphyseal plates if you fancy heading to google) of the bones fuse around 22-23 years of age; no amount of gym work will change that; luck and normal distribution curves can, but nothing else*. This is nothing to do with size, or weigh, or muscle bulk; it's entirely due to the bones not being strong enough. This is not something you can train; it's a simple fact of life*. It's so much a fact of life, it's how forensic pathologists determine the age of death for bodies.

*Well, ish; but not let's confuse the issue with drugs.

At the age of 22 you still have unfused bones in your knee (proximal tibia, distal femur) and shoulder (humerus head and acromion); which are the ones I'm most interested in (also iliac crest, wrist and plenty in the sacrum, but these are much less important). Spinal ossification ages are much more variable though; tending to fuse (sacrum aside) in the 20-25 age range IIRC; these are typically more stable however, once they start fusing.
Too much force through these areas before fusion causes distortion which causes all sorts of problem, including debilitating arthritis before 30 years of age.

OK, some will be lucky, either fusing up to a year earlier than expected, or simply getting away with it; but for every JLeonard there's an ACorbisiero; for every PVickery there's a TWoodman, for every AJones there's a DFlatman.
Hell it's not just front rowers either, they're just the ones with the most extreme pressure coming through knees and shoulders - look at James Forrester (retired aged 27 through arthritis), or Martin Haag (needed 2 walking sticks by his mid-40s, 1 artificial knee, the other may have been done by now).
It's probably worth pointing out (again) that it's not just their playing career I'm worried about, though it's certainly an issue; I don't like dealing with patients who need knee replacements in their 30s because they or their coaches were idiots 15 years earlier. It's also not just the top class players; it's just that they're an exaggeration of this, with more training, and more force whilst playing.

To demonstrate and spot the difference. Which do you think looks stronger / better developed?


Good summary of the ages of ossification for the long bones here:




The likes of ACorbisiero*, TWoodman**, HThomas*** etc are the prime examples of what I'd like to avoid.

* 2000 minutes in 3 seasons before 23rd birthday
** 1100 minutes in 1 season aged 22
*** 1200 minutes aged 19, 700 aged 20, then notably less due to the inevitable injuries



Of course, players want game time; and the coaches want to get their best players on the pitch NOW, and 10 years time be damned!
Just like concussion.

For me, it's one of those areas where players need to be protected from themselves, and should be a directive from the top down, either as a PRL agreement; or an RFU/WR dictat. Either way, they'd need to look at it better than I have, and come up with a better figure than the 600 minutes I (more or less) pulled out of my backside; ideally it would then filter down as well, say 600 minutes at Prem/EPCR/LV= level or 900 minutes at Champ/B&I level, or 1200 at ND1 to reflect the way that forces both outright reduce, and become more stable as the level played reduces.

Take Corb's as an example - he's basically knackered, and will be lucky to still be playing 1st class rugby by the time he's 30 - but... he's a British lion; whilst Nat Catt (similar potential in the same age group) has amassed all of 1 saxons cap.
Would Trevor Woodman trade in his RWC winner's medal for another 5 years on his career?

20 year olds have this tendency not to care very much about the damage they may be accruing for their 40s / 50s; especially if they're fighting to create a career at that stage.

Mods - if you feel this is better in a general board, rather than nation-specific, feel free to move across. Otherwise...

LC Dickie
725 minutes aged 20, 900 aged 21, 350 and counting (10 weeks injured) aged 22 - aged 20, he also racked up 600 minutes for EngU20 and Plymouth

K Brookes
1000 minutes aged 20, fine since

P Hill
600 minutes and counting, aged 20; in the England squad

That's a very interesting read mate... it deserves a wider audience. Have you thought about blogging on injuries?

blogging? gods no! I'll just stick to message boards I use anyway.
If anyone else wants to cut/paste it, though, then feel free.

Which Tyler wrote:blogging? gods no! I'll just stick to message boards I use anyway.
If anyone else wants to cut/paste it, though, then feel free.

You should consider it though, in all seriousness?

What do you advocate? Age limits for front row forwards? More stringent medical assessments and a sort of license to play in the front row?

"For me, it's one of those areas where players need to be protected from themselves, and should be a directive from the top down, either as a PRL agreement; or an RFU/WR dictat. Either way, they'd need to look at it better than I have, and come up with a better figure than the 600 minutes I (more or less) pulled out of my backside; ideally it would then filter down as well, say 600 minutes at Prem/EPCR/LV= level or 900 minutes at Champ/B&I level, or 1200 at ND1 to reflect the way that forces both outright reduce, and become more stable as the level played reduces."

TBH, the reason I picked on 600 minutes, is that it's not a silly number; whilst still being plenty for a youngster to learn his trade - it's basically a full season of being on the bench

Difficult to argue against seeing as I only learnt that your bones weren't fused at 20 around 6 hours ago!

The real problem comes from the fact that no young front rower, fresh from the JRWC will WANT to see his game time artificially limited; and no coach is going to want to limit the game time of his most talented / only fit prop/hooker. These guys need protecting from themselves; but it's a bit like asking a 20 year old to already have their pension plan in place.

FTR; it's exactly the same reason that I object to sending 16 year olds to the gym to throw weights around.

Of course, my "solution" runs into further problems with how do you categorise my sliding scale? though I'm sure research should be pretty easy for that (force applied to a scrum machine to indicate force, frequency of scrums that collapse or stand up to indicate stability).
Figures I've used for individuals are Prem, LV and European club rugby. Age group and loan deals really ought to apply as well.
I'd also have a ceiling on the number of minutes total for any player to play in a season; regardless of level; but that's more for fatigue really, and way too high for top level young front rowers.

Definitely need to get this sort of thing more published . Have you thought of sending your research to the RFU or rugby clibs

You probably ought to get something a bit more formal up there, if only to stop some hack from one of the websites or papers skanking the whole thing.

There's no research in there - well, just minutes played by a couple of individuals I've instinctively thought were playing too much (I also did a few more, where their numbers were fine; eg George at Sarries and Waller at Saints). That research takes about 2-3 minutes on statbunker per player.
The rest of it is basic information that any 2nd year med student, (or physio, chiro, osteo, sports therapist etc etc) knows, alongside my thoughts on the matter.
This stuff isn't news to the authorities; but I suspect that they devote approximately 0 minutes to worrying about it - just like they did with concussion until about 5 years ago, when they started giving it lip service. The only people who will really care about this is likely to be people like myself who are trying to put these players back together again 20 years later; and we're biased because it pays our mortgage.

Pretty much all of us have played the game; and done so beyond once-a-week at school. Did any of us not know that rugby causes injuries, and increases our chances of arthritis? We knew, we just didn't care.
I want to increase awareness amongst fans, and have an importent discussion on the issue (which I generally raise once or twice a year on a fairly basic level).

If some newspaper hack, or rugby blog wants to steal all this, then great; feel free; get more eyes on the matter; maybe they can devote a bit more time to doing some better "research" (shouldn't be that hard to come up with a list of professional front rowers who retired young and spend 2-3 minutes asking statbunker how many minutes they played each season)

I haven't read through the thread in its entirety but this makes for interesting reading.

Between the start of the 2012-13 season and the end of the 2014-15 season, there were 2,208 injuries to players in the Top 14 (the survey defined an injury as one that ended the player’s participation in that particular match). The front row account for 26% of that total injuries with the hooker the worst affected; in all, the player wearing the No 2 shirt suffered more blood, face, neck and knee injuries than any other position, and was second in the list of concussion and shoulder injuries.

http://www.rugbyworld.com/takingpart/fi ... tion-54325

Excellent post - hope it gets taken up by the relevant bodies.

One thing did strike me though. Regardless of playing hours, how much more important is it to review the significantly greater time - and processes performed - in the gym? Those knee joints - and others - are going to get hammered with any form of lift/squat, running etc. While injuries to neck and shoulder joints are more likely for players during actual games, joints of all types will take much higher impacts during training, as there are many more hours of training than game time.

So - in reality - are we really saying that any significant exercise before bone structures have completely matured is bad for us, and will lead to complications in later life? I'm not playing Devils Advocate here, just following the logical progression of the arguments presented... And imagine the legal implications. "I put it to you that, despite being well aware that the human skeletal structure is not fully mature until around 23, the club did wilfully and negligently allow Mr/Mrs/Miss/Master xxx to both train extensively in the gym and play at the weekends in the club teams from the age of 6 upwards to 22. Nay, in fact you did not only allow it, you actively encouraged and supervised it......"

I agree with training will be dealing with heavier loads - but they're far more stable, much lower impact, and way more controlled. Everyone who's learned how to use weights* knows that "good form is everything", and that it's good form that protects you from injury. You have no control over form when that scrum collapses or someone charges in to clear you out of a ruck.
Having said that; I also hate how young players (not just rugby) are sent to the gym to throw weights around, and have even "discussed" this with an olympic (not rugby) coach, who sent one of my patients to the gym aged 14 in order to bulk up.


* Actually scratch that, any form of training, be it weights, pilates, swimming, whatever else.

APR wrote:Excellent post - hope it gets taken up by the relevant bodies.

One thing did strike me though. Regardless of playing hours, how much more important is it to review the significantly greater time - and processes performed - in the gym? Those knee joints - and others - are going to get hammered with any form of lift/squat, running etc. While injuries to neck and shoulder joints are more likely for players during actual games, joints of all types will take much higher impacts during training, as there are many more hours of training than game time.

So - in reality - are we really saying that any significant exercise before bone structures have completely matured is bad for us, and will lead to complications in later life? I'm not playing Devils Advocate here, just following the logical progression of the arguments presented... And imagine the legal implications. "I put it to you that, despite being well aware that the human skeletal structure is not fully mature until around 23, the club did wilfully and negligently allow Mr/Mrs/Miss/Master xxx to both train extensively in the gym and play at the weekends in the club teams from the age of 6 upwards to 22. Nay, in fact you did not only allow it, you actively encouraged and supervised it......"

Squats and similar exercises will result in an increase in muscle mass, which results in more tension being applied to bone, which therefore increases bone density, making it stronger.

One of the main reasons for osteoporosis in the elderly is a reduction is muscle mass, resulting in bones losing density and becoming brittle.

Its an interesting argument OP, but I don't see how the EGP's will effect the integrity of the joint? It will have no effect on the Meniscus, or Articular cartilage, in which most knee issues arise. Additonally the MCL, ACL, PSL and LCL will still be functionally the same. However it is true that bone density does increase which age up until 40-50, but I'd like to see some studies linking EPG opening to knee injuries before I could believe it. (The reason the 20 year old X-ray looks so week is because Cartilage doesn't show up on X-ray)

Id argue that back three players have a greater risk of knee, ankle and leg injuries. Nowell has already had his problems.

padprop wrote:Its an interesting argument OP, but I don't see how the EGP's will effect the integrity of the joint? It will have no effect on the Meniscus, or Articular cartilage, in which most knee issues arise. Additonally the MCL, ACL, PSL and LCL will still be functionally the same. However it is true that bone density does increase which age up until 40-50, but I'd like to see some studies linking EPG opening to knee injuries before I could believe it. (The reason the 20 year old X-ray looks so week is because Cartilage doesn't show up on X-ray)

Id argue that back three players have a greater risk of knee, ankle and leg injuries. Nowell has already had his problems.

I think we might be talking at cross purposes a little here. I'm not particularly talking about joint integrity, or soft tissue injury; and certainly not acute (or recurrent acute) injuries.
What I'm worried about is repeated microtrauma to the joint (and EGP) cartilage, and subchondral bone => minor deformity => early onset &/ increased severity of degenerative arthritis.
TBH, I'm also more worried about this happening at the epiphysis en masse, rather than the EGP specifically - that's just a decent enough rule of thumb to use here, and nicely illustrative for a post on a layman's forum.

There's a decent amount of research on these injuries happening; though very little (that I've found without research facilities or time to do so) on the longer-term effects when those adolescents reach middle-age.

As I'm back here; some more stats:
Alex Corbisiero: Aged 22: 975 minutes; Aged 21: 539 minutes; Aged 20: 951 minutes
Trevor Woodman*: Aged 22: 1280 minutes; Aged 21: 80 minutes; Aged 20: 90 muinutes ... *NB: Statbunker is very dodgy on anything before 2000
Henry Thomas: Aged 22:1055; Aged 21: 523; Aged 20: 1721
Luke Cowan-Dickie: Aged 22: 930 minutes; Aged 21: 894 minutes; Aged 20: 596 minutes; Aged 19: 151 minutes; Aged 18: 78 minutes
Kieran Brookes: Aged 22: 87 minutes; Aged 21: 221 minutes; Aged 20: 1105 minutes: Aged 19: 224 minutes
Paul Hill: Aged 22: 504 minutes*; Aged 21: 1244 minutes; Aged 20: 591 minutes ... *and counting, I cut off at 01/01/18, he's got until 02/03/18 to finish this age
Joe Marler: Aged 22: 1386 minutes; Aged 21: 1777 minutes; Aged 20: 1169 minutes; Aged 19: 68 minutes
Mako Vunipola: Aged 22: 1148 minutes; Aged 21: 875 minutes; Aged 20: 87 minnutes
Kyle Sinckler: Aged 22: 792 minutes; Aged 21: 1401 minutes; Aged 20: 574 minutes; Aged 19: 99 minutes; Aged 18: 7 minutes
Matt Mullan: Aged 22: 1884 minutes; Aged 21: 449 minutes; Aged 20: 40 minutes; Aged 19: 80 minutes
Dan Cole: Aged 22: 1053 minutes; Aged 21: 833 minutes; Aged 20: 44 minutes

This year's hot young front rows:
Beno Obano: Aged 22: 724 minutes: Aged 21: 130 minutes; Aged 20: 39 minutes
Tom Dunn: Aged 22: 86 minutes: Aged 21: 278 minutes; Aged 20: 115 minutes
Ellis Genge: Aged 22: 1258 minutes*; Aged 21: 1236 minutes ... *and counting, I cut off at 01/01/18, he's got until 16/02/18 to finish this age

So Marler and Sinckler had both played more mins than Corbs by 23 and Mullan was only 90 mins behind. Whilst all of the current lot had played more mins than Woodman.
I can’t see a trend that early mins leads to early retirement. I’m sure they’ll all be using zimmer frames by their late 40’s but that’s not the point.

Marler’s minutes seriously standout - way ahead of anyone else’s. Worryingly.

Also, do Cole’s stats include his time at Bedford? He was pretty much a regular there at 19/20 years of age.....if I remember correctly.

Correct.
I don't know how many minutes Woodman actually played (see the caveat by his name); I serious doubts he actually went from 80 minutes to 1280 minutes in am off-season.
No-one's particularly claimed that
Actually, that's exactly the point - did you even read the first post? [ETA: sorry, just seen that your post wasn't intended for this thread, I thought you'd switched over for yourself - though the point still stands]
Yep, worried about Marler
Unless Bedford we're playing into he premiership, HC/Championship and/or LV=, then that seems rather unlikely.

Which Tyler wrote:Correct.
I don't know how many minutes Woodman actually played (see the caveat by his name); I serious doubts he actually went from 80 minutes to 1280 minutes in am off-season.
No-one's particularly claimed that
Actually, that's exactly the point - did you even read the first post?
Yep, worried about Marler
Unless Bedford we're playing into he premiership, HC/Championship and/or LV=, then that seems rather unlikely.

No I didn’t read the first post on this thread as this latest discussion has been moved by Puja from elsewhere. Puja stated, on the board this latest discussion was moved from, that Corbs had to retire because he played too much rugby at a young age. I countered that I didn’t think he’d played more than most young, elite age grade props but that he just had inherent weaknesses, and cited Marler as an example of someone who played lots of rugby at a young age but was still playing in their late 20’s. You then cited this thread and asked for other players to investigate, I did, you did and there is no correlation between lots of hours prior to 23 and having to retire early. Which is the point I was debating with Puja.
Cole played over 900 minutes whilst at Bedford putting him second in our sample for minutes played prior to the age of 23.

I know, hence my ETA.
Not quite, Puja stated that Corbisiero retired aged 27; and said that Corn.s was a classic case of playing too much too young.
Any discussion that playing too much too young = early retirement is in your head, not on any of the posts.
No-one claimed that Corbisiero played more rugby than any other young prop/hooker ever, though it has been claimed that some retied young and some don't.
If that's the point you were discussing with Puma, it's not the point that he (or I) were discussing with you.
Ahain, no-one has claimed correlation between playing minutes at a young age and early retirement. Even if someone had claimed either correlation or causation; we don't have enough data to confirm or refute the claim; but as no-one has, and no-one's about to, that is utterly moot.
I don't care how many minutes Cole played for Bedford, as those were played in the Premiership, Heineken/Challenge cups or LV=. Every player has played more rugby than that counted, almost all will have played A-league, Champion-lebel and England age-grade. Guess what - they haven't been counted either.


Incidentally, you replied to me about this thread, and this discussion is now taking place on this thread. It might be an idea to read this thread now - it's part of a discussion that has been taking place, on and off, for over a decade

Which Tyler wrote:I know, hence my ETA.
Not quite, Puja stated that Corbisiero retired aged 27; and said that Corn.s was a classic case of playing too much too young.
Any discussion that playing too much too young = early retirement is in your head, not on any of the posts.
No-one claimed that Corbisiero played more rugby than any other young prop/hooker ever, though it has been claimed that some retied young and some don't.
If that's the point you were discussing with Puma, it's not the point that he (or I) were discussing with you.
Ahain, no-one has claimed correlation between playing minutes at a young age and early retirement. Even if someone had claimed either correlation or causation; we don't have enough data to confirm or refute the claim; but as no-one has, and no-one's about to, that is utterly moot.
I don't care how many minutes Cole played for Bedford, as those were played in the Premiership, Heineken/Challenge cups or LV=. Every player has played more rugby than that counted, almost all will have played A-league, Champion-lebel and England age-grade. Guess what - they haven't been counted either.

Fair enough, I must’ve misinterpreted what Puja meant. The discussion went from Corbs is retired to its a classic case of a player playing too much too young. I’d argue it’s an extreme case of a player playing too much too young, and playing with inherent defects.

Doesn’t really wash to base a theory on statistics but then just dismiss part of those statistics. You point was based solely on minutes played and you therefore need to take in to account minutes played. Especially when they are from the same source from which you quoted all your other stats. You can’t just say I don’t care. Guess what, you should count all minutes otherwise it undermines your theory.......which I believe to be correct. In Coles case it adds nearly 50% on top of what you stated.....which is a lot.

Read the thread. I'm not basing this on statistics, I'm basing it on medical knowledge

There are an awful lot of stats for something not based on stats. Especially when you opened a post with ‘As I'm back here; some more stats’.
Anyway, another silly argument based on a misunderstanding. I’m off to watch some YouTube footage of Chris Cook playing flyhalf as an 18 year old.

It does matter where they play, i.e. high level or Bedford, as the pressure being applied in the scrum is likely to differ. And if just from the modern props we're running into a problem with Corbs, Thomas, possibly Auterac and Catt, maybe not Woodman as I seem to recall a gym accident, then it does seem a too higher number of incidents, and there are likely other players with ongoing problems that are to some degree being managed