Introduction

Two U-20 IRB Tournaments took place in 2011:

Junior World Championship

(Italy; 10 – 26 June 2011): 12 teams

Junior World Rugby Trophy

(Georgia; 24 May – 5 June 2011): 8 teams

This report summarises the key results obtained for 11 teams competing in the JWC and 5 teams competing in the JWRT.

The study was conducted in accordance with the IRB approved consensus statement on definitions and procedures for injury surveillance studies in rugby union.

The numbers of injuries recorded in small tournaments, such as the JWC and JWRT, in any one year are relatively small and when these injuries are sub-divided into forwards and backs, etc the numbers become even smaller. This makes it very difficult to reach meaningful conclusions from the results obtained in either the JWC or the JWRT in a single year. The main purposes of the IRB injury surveillance studies are to collect data from Tournaments over several years in order to obtain more representative information and to identify general trends over a period of time. For this reason, apart from reporting the anthropometric results and the incidence of injury, the data recorded for the JWC and JWRT were combined in the analyses presented below.

Summary of results

68 match injuries (Backs: 23; Forwards: 45) were reported by the 16 teams during 1500 player-match-hours (Backs: 700; Forwards: 800).

Incidence of injury

JWC: 55 injuries/1000 player-hours (Backs: 37; Forwards: 70); JWRT: 20 (Backs: 21; Forwards: 19); Overall: 45 (Backs: 33; Forwards: 56).

Previous results:
2008: JWC - 58 (Backs: 59; Forwards: 58); JWRT - 50 (Backs: 58; Forwards: 43); Overall 56 (Backs: 58; Forwards: 54)
2010: JWC - 64 (Backs: 66; Forwards: 61); JWRT - 38 (Backs: 36; Forwards: 39); Overall 59 (Backs: 61; Forwards: 57)

Severity of injury

Mean - 32 days (Backs: 28; Forwards: 34); Median – 6 days (Backs: 20; Forwards: 5)

Previous results:
2008 / 2010 – Mean: 22 days (Backs: 17; Forwards: 28); Median: 6 (Backs: 6; Forwards: 8)

Players’ anthropometric data, Mean (standard deviation)

The pattern that both backs and forwards competing in the JWRT are significantly smaller and lighter than those competing in the JWC continues. There are also trends that forwards in the JWC are getting taller and heavier.

Conclusions

The results obtained from the 2011 IRB U-20 Tournaments are similar to the results obtained previously for these Tournaments. In general, there were more upper limb and joint/ligament injuries and fewer lower limb and muscle/tendon injuries than previously reported but the differences were not statistically significant.

Data will be collected from the 2012 and 2013 IRB JWC and JWRT Tournaments and then the data obtained from the 2008 to 2013 JWC and JWRT Tournaments will be combined to provide a detailed evaluation of injuries sustained during IRB U-20 Tournaments.