Expert warns of child injuries playing rugby

MIDDLE-aged and middle class, Professor Allyson Pollock does not look like Edinburgh’s answer to Che Guevara. Nevertheless this revolutionary has lobbed a grenade into the heart of Scottish rugby and the shock waves will be felt for a long time to come. The pyrotechnics followed the publication of her book Tackling Rugby a couple of months back.

Pollock is Professor of Public Health at Queen Mary, University of London where she currently works although, for much of the decade it took her to research and write this book, Prof Pollock was employed by Edinburgh University which is why she has the Scottish Rugby Union and the Scottish Government firmly in her sights.

The book is in two parts, the first dealing with the lack of data collection on youth injuries in the sport, the second part outlining what parents need to know before their offspring sign up. If you are a rugby parent I urge you to read it.

Her book covers many issues but the claim at its core is this: As adults we have a duty of care towards children. The game of rugby union does not collect comprehensive data of children’s injuries so no one knows how dangerous it really is and, without that knowledge, no one can give their informed consent to play the game.

Her own son suffered three serious injuries in his school rugby career, including a broken cheek bone which can be psychologically devastating; little wonder mum was horrified.

“It [the book] was written from the point of view that there is a lot of information that parents needed to have and were not being given,” she says when we meet in Edinburgh. “If there is any annoyance it is really that the [Scottish] government has failed to respond to repeated calls for collecting and monitoring data, not just in rugby but in all sports.

“I was pretty appalled by the number of injuries I was seeing routinely and hearing about and feeling that no one was paying any attention to what was happening.

“You can’t carry out your duty of care if you are not measuring the injuries and monitoring them and that is all I want to see.

“I want injury collection on all children. We need a school reporting system and a good Accident & Emergency reporting system. Both if those things are feasible and doable. It is no less than children deserve.”

When talking to people in the game about Prof Pollock’s work, it is surprising how many insist that she wants to ban children’s rugby outright, a charge she firmly denies.

“Where do I say that in the book?” She doesn’t. “I don’t want to ban things, I want to make them safer.”

I ask her if rugby union’s old guard has closed ranks on her in an attempt to repel this upstart and all her troublesome questions?

“No, no, no, no, no,” she says for emphasis. “Some of the most informed, wise and thoughtful interventions have come from the old boys. They understand the game and they see far too much collision. I have had four or five sets of comments from older professionals who understand the game. Rugby doctors who speak out about the neglect of some injuries. I don’t feel like that at all. In some ways I think that some people within the game have found it difficult to speak out.”

Tackling Rugby does just what the title says and harder than some appreciate. Prof Pollock talks about the disconnect between what children want from the game (camaraderie) and what adults want children to get from the game (competition). She also points out that the millions of children playing the game globally have no representation. The odd false note, “every injury is a failure of care in the game”, should not detract from her core message that we must do better. I found myself nodding in agreement with almost everything until I reached the following on page 79: “The SRU finds protection in ignorance. The axiom is: ‘if we don’t collect the data we don’t need to know the risks, and if we don’t know the risks we don’t need to act.’ Lack of risk data is a handy tool in the contest with public health advocates.”

Rather than blaming the usual human frailties of inertia or a lack of resources Prof Pollock is accusing the SRU of wilfully failing to collect data on children’s injuries because it knows the results would horrify parents. It is an astonishing accusation to make but she doesn’t disown it.

“The question, if you want to say they are not wilful, is for ten years why have they chosen not to collect data?” Prof Pollock argues. “I have been writing and talking about this for ten years! Why has the SRU not taken more steps and made greater strides in data collection? They could have done it. They could have been going to the Scottish Government, they could have done it through Sport Scotland… Why did nobody ever say we need to have the data?”

It is a question I put to Dr James Robson, head of medical services at the SRU and the national team doctor. I must confess an interest here because Dr Robson has been around Murrayfield so long that he patched me up on more than one occasion in my own playing days.

Outside Scotland, Dr Robson is best known as the doctor who has overseen the past six Lions tours. He has probably saved the life of two players, Thom Evans in Cardiff in 2010 and Will Greenwood in South Africa back in 1997. Dr Robson is not used to defending his own integrity and this most rational of men becomes noticeably emotional when I put Prof Pollock’s charges to him.

“I am not sure how to counter that,” he says. “We do collect [injury] data and I have just finished writing a report for the board with my recommendations after collating the information from last season.”

But hospital visits only catch a small percentage of all rugby injuries?