What’s behind Super League’s injury crisis?

Despite this early stage of the season, Super League is in the midst of an injury crisis.

Most Super League clubs have played just four league games this season, with Warrington and reigning champions Hull KR playing only three due to the Robins’ World Club Challenge duties.

Yet there is a level of enforced squad rotation happening across the league’s 14 teams which you would normally expect to see towards the end of a brutal season, not the beginning.

Since the turn of the month, Super League’s injury crisis has worsened.

Wigan’s talisman Bevan French was ruled out for four months with a hamstring tear, giving boss Matt Peet a headache at full-back as French was injured while covering the position for Jai Field, who has appendicitis.

In fact full-back is seemingly a vulnerable position of late, with Warrington’s Cai Taylor-Wray injured in training, Hull FC’s Will Pryce and Castleford’s Blake Taaffe both out for the year while Leigh’s Bailey Hodgson is also out for a significant period.

Huddersfield, however, have been hit hard in the early stages of the season and described their situation as “unprecedented” last week. The Giants were further depleted by the news that George Flanagan Jr and Matty English face lengthy spells on the sidelines.

It is not only injuries which are the cause of some early season squad rotation but suspensions too.

Hull KR’s Karl Lawton was suspended for three games earlier this month for a Grade E dangerous contact charge, while Bradford Bulls duo Eliot Peposhi and Loghan Lewis were given three-game and two-game bans, respectively, for incidents in their narrow defeat at St Helens.

Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester before last week’s Challenge Cup tie against Bradford, Wigan boss Peet was pragmatic about losing French and Field.

“It’s par for the course when you look across the league,” he said. “That’s why no teams get carried away when they’re playing well or they try and keep on track when these periods hit because that is the nature of the sport and the Super League season.”

These sentiments were echoed by St Helens assistant Eamon O’Carroll while Warrington boss Sam Burgess actually views Taylor-Wray’s absence as an opportunity.

“We’ve got a squad. We’re getting tested pretty early on in terms of our numbers but what we’ve got is a more than capable squad who can go out and compete. We’re proving that in the early rounds of the season,” O’Carroll told BBC Radio Merseyside.

Burgess added: “It’s unfortunate but it’s great for us as a team to figure out different ways to play without him and I think we’ll get a couple more back in the next few weeks as well.

Can a reason for the succession of injuries be pinned or is the reality more abstract?

BBC rugby league reporter Matt Newsum thinks it is a combination of factors.

“Firstly, ruck speeds have been sped up by a more thorough policing of infringements, and the reward for those teams quite often is a set restart – more commonly known as a six-again – rather than the old penalty and break in play,” Newsum said.

“Teams that have been ‘pinged’ can feel like they’ve been set on a treadmill someone has jammed into reverse, while someone whacks them with a baseball bat intermittently.

“It’s repeat efforts on top of repeat efforts, and because it is so new, it has been difficult for teams to fine tune conditioning for it. The ball in play time is soaring, anecdotally it feels like far fewer scrums, and those other little moments of rest and recovery have already been lessened by shot clocks.”

Factor in an incredibly rainy winter, with some pitches struggling with the deluge, and you have a perfect storm.

“Some of the shared football stadiums and even bespoke rugby league grounds have specialised drainage systems which can alleviate some of those issues but even the best of them have struggled,” Newsum added.

“Heavy pitches take their toll, sapping players who already feeling their way into the new season and the return to this most physical of contact sports.

“The science behind the injuries is possibly not yet complete, but these two factors – a quicker game and heavy surfaces – could be extenuating circumstances in the glut of players breaking down.”