PHIL HOWARD from Hull expresses his concern about the number of injuries that are affecting so many clubs.

I HAVE been watching Rugby League since 1958 and coached at junior level for several years.

The present injury crisis is unprecedented and is damaging to the quality of the spectacle and players’ health.

Some younger fans argue that it is a contact sport and that it is the same for every club, but this is not true.

Of course it is a physical game, but there must be a limit to the number and nature of injuries we are willing to accept.

Not all clubs have the same budget and richer clubs can deal with the damage better than other clubs who cannot afford to reach the salary cap.

What other entertainment could tolerate this? Can you imagine people going to the opera being told that Pavarotti is ill (I know he’s dead!) but  we’ve got a really good lad from our Academy to replace him and we’re still going to charge you £50. It wouldn’t be accepted.

One boxing promoter once said of Rugby League that he couldn’t name a single modern player and that the game has no stars.

We do have stars but they are the first to be selected and consequently, the first to be injured. Our stars are not on the pitch for long periods. You cannot promote a sport by asking people to come and watch our second, or in some cases third team.

Equally the health of the players has to be a vital consideration.

The game has done a lot to protect players from brain damage but we are accepting the deluge of broken limbs, torn muscles and ruptured ligaments.

This does not fit with “having a duty of care to the players”. The game must address this issue as strongly as it does the issue of brain damage.

Some coaches have said that the problem is a recent one, citing the speeding up of the game combined with the very wet weather at the beginning of the season.

I suggest that this is not the case and that the injury problem besetting our game has been coming for some time.

All the changes, since the introduction of the ten-metre rule by the Australians, have been introduced in order to speed up the game as they competed with the crash, bang, wallop game of Aussie Rules.

I have watched a lot of old games recently on YouTube and I can’t see why there was a problem.

I would argue that modern Rugby League is too fast. Prop forwards do well if they last 20 minutes. In boxing you don’t put on a substitute after five rounds.

Tiredness used to be part of the game. It allowed scrum-halves to zip past tiring forwards and set up a sweeping attack by a threequarter line.

The point was to inject pace into a match, not have everything done at great speed. Now such moves are cut off by a second rower who has just come on and is as fresh and fast as a back.

Those kind of tries don’t happen now. Most scores involve five-tackle barges followed by a kick to a six-foot winger who is selected for his ability to catch a ball in the air, rather than for his blistering pace and his skill to beat a fullback one-on-one.

So what can be done?

In my opinion we should go back to a five-metre rule at the play-the-ball. Ten-metre shuffles drive players past exhaustion rather than to exhaustion, necessitating substitutions.

We should also reduce the number of substitutes.

These two moves alone would slow the game down. Tired players can’t maintain three-man tackles; they would have to pace themselves.

Many players today don’t tackle properly with the emphasis on big hits instead of a grab and wrap-around tackle.

With a five-metre defensive line the force of the collision would be lessened, reducing injury.

In short the game has gone from being intense to too intense and players’ bodies can’t handle it.

Proper scrummaging would also slow the pace of the game down while giving an opportunity to inject pace by the halfbacks.

A reduction of injuries by altering the structure of the game would have financial benefits for clubs.

Instead of having squads of 25 players to cover for injuries, perhaps have, say, 21. Those other four could be employed in the Reserve set-up or move naturally to other clubs.

Injuries are a huge financial consideration for all clubs. In a recent round, 90 players were unavailable for selection out of a workforce of around 350. That means a quarter of the workforce is off sick!

Finally, a lot of people will argue that my suggestions won’t happen.

Probably not, but we are facing a crisis and we are still early in the season. Something needs to change.

In motorcycling, they produced faster and faster bikes, resulting in more accidents, so they changed the design of tracks to slow the bikes down.

In tennis, racket technology has produced greater speeds, so they are discussing changing the balls to slow the game down.

In golf, club design has led to players hitting the balls ever further, so now they are discussing altering golf courses or ball design to accommodate the increased ball-striking abilities of players.

The point is that increased speed and power isn’t always a good thing especially if it is done at the expense of skill.

The game needs to change for the health of the players because we are asking too much.