Roberts, Simon P. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2402-0749
Stokes, Keith A.
Williams, Sean
West, Stephen W.
Kemp, Simon
Cross, Matt
Moore, Isabel S.
Bitchell, Charlotte Leah
Mathema, Prabhat
Quarrie, Ken
McDonald, Warren
Fortington, Lauren
Rubio del Castillo, Eduardo
Readhead, Clint
Sewry, Nicola
Falvey, Éanna
Tucker, Ross
Funding for this research was provided by:
World Rugby
Article History
Accepted: 26 February 2024
First Online: 12 April 2024
Declarations
:
: This study was funded by a grant awarded by World Rugby.
: KAS and SK are employed by the Rugby Football Union, the national governing body for rugby union in England. KAS received funding for this work from World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union, and Premiership Rugby and has previously received funding for other projects from the Rugby Players Association and the RFU Injured Players Foundation. KQ is employed by New Zealand Rugby and is on the World Rugby Scientific Committee. He has travelled to World Rugby meetings and been provided with accommodation at their expense for meetings and conferences. WM is contracted by Rugby Australia as Chief Medical Officer. LF is on the editorial board at Sports Medicine. ERdC is supported by a PhD scholarship at ECU (awarded to LF by Rugby Australia). CR is employed by the South Africa Rugby Union. ISM receives funding from the Welsh Rugby Union. PM is employed by the Welsh Rugby union. CLB was funded by the Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarships (KESS 2), which is a pan-Wales higher level skills initiative led by Bangor University on behalf of the Higher Education sector in Wales. It is part funded by the Welsh Government’s European Social Fund (ESF) convergence programme for West Wales and the Valleys. NS (University of Pretoria) received payment for the preparation of the data for this study. RT and EF are employed by World Rugby, which provided funding for this study. MC is in paid employment with Premiership Rugby Limited and was previously employed by the Rugby Football Union. SW has previously received research funding from World Rugby and the Rugby Football Union. SWW has received ongoing grant funding from World Rugby for a different research project. SPR has no conflicts of interest to declare.
: The data used for this study are not publicly available. Data sharing agreements, between contributing countries and the lead author’s institution, allowed the collation of anonymous data but did not extend to making this publicly available given restrictions from individual country governing bodies.
: Player consent for the primary data collections was previously granted in each respective country that contributed to the study. Data sharing agreements were obtained for each country to share anonymised and de-identified data with the lead author’s institution, the University of Bath. Ethical approval for the study was granted by the Research Ethics Approval Committee for Health, University of Bath (reference: EP 19/20 028). The study was performed in accordance with the standards of ethics outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.
: All players in this study provided informed consent to their respective unions responsible for collecting injury data in their country.
: KAS, MC, EF, and RT conceived the study idea and methodology. SK, SWW, and MC collected and verified English team injury data. ISM, CLB, and PM collected and verified Welsh team injury data, KQ collated and verified New Zealand team injury data. WM, LF, and ERdC collected and verified Australian team injury data. CR and NS collected and verified South Africa team injury data. SPR collated and analysed data from all countries, and SW contributed to statistical analysis. SPR and KAS drafted the manuscript, and all other authors provided critical revisions and interpretation of the data. All authors have approved the final version to be published.