Shorter careers as pro game much tougher, warns expert doctor

TODAY’S professional rugby players will have to accept shorter careers or face serious, life-lasting injuries after they retire.

So warns Dr Conor O’Brien who is involved with The Sports Surgery Clinic in Santry. He also served as doctor to the Irish Olympic team in 1996 and was Leinster rugby’s team doctor for two seasons in the ‘90s.

Dr O’Brien is also a former chairman of the Irish Sports Council’s Anti-Doping Committee, a member of the World Anti-Doping Committee and has also played AIL rugby with Lansdowne.

“Nowadays, the thing you have to remember is that the number of injuries per playing performance has gone up,” he explained. “In the ‘50s it was a case of one medical intervention per 60 playing appearances.

“That was more or less one injury every four seasons. Nowadays it is one per 15 so, in a rugby match, you would have two injuries that require medical attention so the profile has changed.

“The main reason is that the ball is in play for about 43 minutes now whereas, 20 years ago, there were only 20 minutes. There are less scrums and there is much more high impact.”

However, advances in modern medicine and technology mean that players are less likely to suffer in the short-term and ailments are diagnosed and treated much earlier than was the case.

“The injuries these days are dealt with much better. So, if somebody gets hurt, they get fixed and they don’t get patched up to play on. They get it sorted and they come back to play again.

“We have seen that. There have been a number of guys who have come back like (Keith Wood) and my clubmate Gordon D’Arcy and he came back to play and was a British and Irish Lion again.

“They recover better but the playing career will be fundamentally shortened because the point will come when you have to give it up. In my day we all played until we were 36, 37 and we all did ourselves in the last two years.”

Dr O’Brien was speaking at the launch of Fitfone, a revolutionary new mobile phone technology for people of all ages who wish to lose weight or increase fitness levels.

For further information, visit www.fitfone.ie