Injury in elite rugby players during the Super 15 Rugby tournament

Includes bibliographical references.Professional rugby union is a contact sport with a high risk of injury. The Super Rugby competition is a particularly demanding 16-week Southern Hemisphere tournament. In this tournament, 15 teams compete and play international level matches every week, which may be associated with an even higher risk of injuries. The main objectives of this dissertation were 1) to review the epidemiology and risk factors of injuries in professional rugby union, with specific reference to the Super Rugby tournament (Part 1), and 2) to document the incidence and nature of time-loss injuries during the 2012 Super Rugby tournament (Part 2). Part 1: In this component of the dissertation, a comprehensive review of injuries during Super Rugby was undertaken. A search revealed only 3 studies that have been conducted during this competition. Therefore additional data were included from other studies on Rugby Union, where appropriate. Part 2: This component of the dissertation consists of a prospective cohort study that was conducted during the 2012 Super Rugby tournament, in which teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa participated. Participants consisted of 152 players from five South African teams. Team physicians collected daily injury data through a secure, webbased electronic platform. Data included the size of the squad, the type of day, main player position, whether it was a training or match injury, hours of play (training and matches), the time of the match injury, the mechanism of the injury, the main anatomical location of the injury, the specific anatomical structure of the injury, the type of injury, and the severity of the injury (days lost)