Synthetic playing surfaces increase the incidence of match injuries in an elite Rugby Union team

Cousins, BEW, Morris, JG ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6508-7897, Sunderland, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7484-1345, Bennett, AM, Shahtahmassebi, G ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0630-2750 and Cooper, SB ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5219-5020, 2021. Synthetic playing surfaces increase the incidence of match injuries in an elite Rugby Union team. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. ISSN 1440-2440

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Abstract

Objectives: To examine differences in match injury incidence between three playing surfaces in elite Rugby Union.

Design: Prospective cohort.

Methods: Match injury incidence was assessed in 89 elite Rugby Union players over two-seasons of professional competition (44 matches, 1014 h player exposure). Match injury incidence was assessed on three different playing surfaces; natural grass, hybrid (natural grass combined with approximately 3% synthetic fibres) and fully synthetic (sand and rubber infill). Overall injury incidence, contact and non-contact injury incidence, and the incidence of minor (≤7 d lost) and major (≥8 d lost) injuries were considered using mixed effect models.

Results: Overall match injury incidence doubled on hybrid and synthetic surfaces compared to natural grass (hybrid: OR = 2.58 [95% CI 1.65–4.03], p  0.05).

Conclusions: The present study suggests that even a small percentage (3%) of synthetic content in the playing surface significantly increases match injury incidence, with an effect seen on both contact and non-contact injury incidence. These findings are important to enable practitioners to be aware of the injury implications of playing matches on hybrid and synthetic pitches.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport
Creators:	Cousins, B.E.W., Morris, J.G., Sunderland, C., Bennett, A.M., Shahtahmassebi, G. and Cooper, S.B.
Publisher:	Elsevier BV
Date:	28 August 2021
ISSN:	1440-2440
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1016/j.jsams.2021.08.019 DOI 1486769 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	12 Nov 2021 10:49
Last Modified:	28 Aug 2022 03:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/44738

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