Taxpayers cover rugby's $2.6m injury cost

Injury cost's for rugby players cost taxpayers $2.6m.

Rugby injuries across Western Bay far outnumber football injuries, with taxpayers forking out millions on winter sport injury rehabilitation claims, new ACC figures reveal.

Often perceived as a safer sport, football injuries in the Western Bay resulted in 1319 ACC claims last year at a cost of $779,414, compared with 2309 rugby injury claims at $2,631,737.

The top five injury categories for both football and rugby were soft tissue injuries such as strains, sprains, or contusions; fractures or dislocations; lacerations, punctures, or stings; dental injuries; and concussion or brain injuries.

Neil Alton, rugby operations manager at BOP Rugby Union, said he did not know why rugby-related claims had increased.

"It is certainly not a lack of effort from New Zealand Rugby Union or Bay of Plenty in continuing to put emphasis on injury prevention," Mr Alton said. "I know our numbers playing in secondary school level are climbing so maybe it is based on more players."

Coaches were trained in injury prevention, he said.

"At secondary school through to seniors, it is a compulsory annual Rugby Smart course they must attend before coaching. It is a coaching and development programme aimed at injury prevention. We know our coaches are armed with valuable information to pass on around injury prevention and techniques to make the game safer."

Local clubs are hoping the FIFA World Cup generates a spike in player numbers.

Although more younger players turn to football than rugby, the beautiful game has about 115,000 registered players nationwide across all age groups, compared with rugby with more than 148,000.

FIFA has designed a football injury prevention programme called FIFA 11+, which has been rolled out in conjunction with New Zealand Football.

The extensive warm-up programme aims to reduce injuries in players aged 14 years and over, although it is up to individual clubs to take it on board.

Waikato Bay of Plenty football development officer for Western Bay Peter Smith said injuries had never been a huge issue, and the federation had been pushing the FIFA 11+ programme to minimise potential injury risks.

Events such as the World Cup and next year's Under 20 World Cup, which New Zealand is hosting, helped to boost the game's profile and increase player numbers.

WaiBOP football chief executive said he could not comment on the increase in claims as he had not had a chance to study the report.

Physiotherapist Hamish Aston said the main injuries he dealt with were ankle injuries from tackling, hamstring strains from running, and the occasional knee injury.

Early in the season it was more common to see shin splint injuries from running on hard ground.

He was seeing more elite junior players in the 12-16-year-old age group who were "over-worked and over-trained".