Super League’s full-back crisis: Sheer coincidence or something more sinister?

Super League is going through an unprecedented and quite frankly, outrageous injury crisis, particularly when it comes to full-backs.

As it stands, there are full-backs currently out of action, with Castleford Tigers, Huddersfield Giants, Hull FC, Hull KR, Leigh Leopards, St Helens and Wigan Warriors all impacted by the bizarre strike down.

The question is simple, isn’t it sheer coincidence, or is it more sinister?

It comes at a time when Super League has gone through a pretty significant change, with rucks being cleaned up and the tempo of the game becoming quicker. It has resulted in many questioning if there is a correlation.

Full-backs, by design, tend to cover more distance than any other player, they have to swing from side to side to join attacks and have more involvements than most other players. Speeding things up makes that harder.

But to truly figure out if something is at play, the best bet is to look at each incident in isolation and the nature of the injury.

If you categorise the injuries, three of the twelve players, Blake Taaffe, Will Pryce and David Armstrong, are ACL injuries. Pryce’s occurred in contact.

Two players, Fletcher Rooney and Bevan French, suffered hamstring injuries in games. Niall Evalds, to a similar extent, has a muscular injury in his leg, pulling up in training with a calf problem.

You’ve then got Jack Welsby, Arthur Mourgue and George Flanagan, who have varying injuries but were all contact injuries. Welsby and Flanagan suffered shoulder and ankle injuries, respectively, in the process of scoring a try, while Mourgue damaged a pectoral muscle making a tackle.

That leaves Dec Murphy and Bailey Hodgson, who both have knee injuries. In Hodgson’s case, he went down with nobody near him. The final player is Jai Field, who has appendicitis.

The conclusion? There’s no obvious trend. Many of the injuries are contact injuries, an inevitable occurrence in a game like rugby league. If all the injuries were muscular, that would raise more alarm bells; similarly, if every injury were in the knee, it would raise suspicion.

But on the surface, it’s more to do with bad luck than anything else. Coaches seem to agree too.

“You can talk through every single injury in detail,” Wigan boss Matt Peet said. “If you look at Jai Field, he’s had his appendix but. Will Pryce was in contact, Bevan was on the floor and someone fell on him, his running metres and speed were no higher than they were in lots of games that he’s played in. You can go on. Taaffe, nobody was near him and that’s in round one.

“These scientific studies, they’re alright looking way back but I think this one is just a freak coincidence and there doesn’t seem to be a real trend between the injuries.”

St Helens assistant Eamon O’Carroll agreed.

“Maybe a combination of all of those things, luck and the speed of the game. There’s certainly an element of bad luck for a lot of them to be full-backs. There’s no doubt the game has sped up, but the injuries are contact from our point of view.

“Jack did his in act of scoring a try. It’s a collision sport, it’s unlucky but it’s a bit of a bizarre situation for the game at the minute but every club will deal with it in different ways.”

One alternative view came from Bradford Bulls coach Kurt Haggerty, who believes it could be down to the quality of the pitches games are being played on.

“It’s a pretty bizarre situation at the moment. The one thing I’ve thought about and spoken to our staff about is that in this country, we don’t cater properly for the weather in our competition.

“For example, we’re constantly on 4G pitches and then go to grass pitches. The change in surfaces is really inconsistent at the moment. Ultimately, we’re not in a place as a sport to have every club with the facilities of a 4G and also a Desi Ball pitch, which is half grass and half 4G.

“The change in surfaces constantly because of the weather and the country that we live in has a huge impact on injuries, especially early on in the season because you’re transitioning from 4G to grass.

“Let’s review it halfway through the season or at the back end and see if the injuries have calmed down. If they do, I think that has a really big bearing on it.”