New Zealand Warriors forward Jazz Tevaga copped a ridiculous sin bin during Sunday's NRL match against the Parramatta Eels on the Central Coast. Video / NRL
This year, the NRL could come down to the survival of the fittest.
Injuries have hit the competition hard in 2020. Of the 16 teams in the NRL, half of them finished the last round with seven or more players sidelined through injury.
Across all 16 teams, 97 players werelisted in the NRL casualty ward at the conclusion of last weekend's games, with 39 of those injuries being season-ending.
Physiotherapist and injury analyst Brien Seeney says it's not the amount, but the type of injuries that are being seen more of.
"In terms of the number of injuries, if you count them up, it's been about the same in terms of the number of injuries that have occurred this season, but what's changed is the number of major injuries," Seeney said.
"Injuries that required longer than five weeks recovery, the number of those injuries has significantly increased so guys are spending long in the casualty ward. So, there's not necessarily more individual injuries, but just more severe injuries."
Seeney is known throughout the NRL world for his online presence as NRL Physio on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, offering observations and potential diagnoses for injuries in real-time. While not affiliated with the NRL, Seeney has become a reliable source for fans wanting to know how long certain players might be sidelined for.
Dylan Napa suffered a season-ending knee injury last weekend. Photo / Getty Images
Injuries to soft tissue areas of the body such as hamstrings, calves, syndesmoses and ACLs have been prevalent throughout 2020. For Sydney Roosters fans in particular ACL injuries have been unfriendly and they lost both Victor Radley and Sam Verrills for the season to ACL tears within the first 30 minutes of the same game.
There are a number of elements that have attributed to the rise in severe injuries. The Covid-19 break earlier in the year meant the players went from playing to being in lockdown and then had to try to up their training loads to get back to NRL level before the resumption of the season.
When the season resumed, there were new rules established in the game around the ruck designed to speed up the play. While that has made for a better product for spectators, a faster game means players are getting more fatigued and with that comes more risk of injury.
Newcastle Knights hooker Andrew McCullough suffered a season-ending hamstring injury in round 11. Photo / Getty Images
There's also the factor of having no reserve grade this season so replacement players are coming in with no game play under their belts, which increases the chance of injury significantly, while flying in and out on game day isn't great for preparation or recovery.
"Syndesmosis and ACL injuries, they're going to happen every year. They, especially the syndesmosis injuries, are a lot to go with contact so they can just be a bit of bad luck sometimes. But something that plays into both of those is fatigue; players, especially with the rule changes and stuff like that, there's a lot more fatigue in the game today so decisions players make, they can get a bit lazy in tackles, fall on ball carriers' lower legs which causes syndesmosis and ACL injuries," Seeney said.
Victor Radley was one of two Sydney Roosters forwards to suffer a season-ending ACL injury in their round seven win over the St George Illawarra Dragons. Photo / Getty Images
"This is one of the toughest sports in the world in terms of contact sport, and the injury rate in rugby league is quite high because of the nature of the sport. Adding in an unprecedented situation caused by a global pandemic and then deciding to change the rules two weeks out from the season resuming, you've got limited support as well with the bubble restricting the number of support staff that can be in and around the guys.
"As hard as this is to believe with the injury toll, they would be doing absolutely everything they need to be doing. I see a lot of people get up and arms saying they shouldn't warm up so hard or they shouldn't be training so hard and all that, and the guys who are in place at the clubs are there because they're the best of the best – that's the players, support staff, physios – it would be scary to see the injury rate if the players weren't doing all of the hard work and preparation."
