June/July 2005. Issue 69

HQ News

Johnno BOWS Out as Jonah Returns

The purist would argue he was bundled into touch by Erinle but no one was quibbling on such a night as his try in the left-hand corner was upheld by referee Tony Speadbury. And there was more good news for the Lomu team by half-time as they managed to break out of their own 22 and eventually scored at the other end when their hard working second-row Troy Flavell scored from a pass by flanker Justin Collins.

Although Lomu didn’t appear for the second half having injured his shoulder, his side went in front when flanker Eric Rush’s inside pass was finished off over the line by Spencer. Spencer left the conversion to full back Bruce Reihana who popped it over from wide out. And they increased their lead to 29-19 with a soft try from Matt Burke handed to him by Healey who then completed his own hat-trick with an interception and 40 metre sprint to the line. Goode, who had been off for treatment to a head wound, kicked the conversion to bring the Johnno team to within three points of their rivals, 26-29.

With the crowd signing their hearts out and the sides providing a ding-dong finish it fell to yet another Leicester Tiger, Leon Lloyd, to score the winner from his own coach Pat Howard’s off-load on 80 minutes. Goode slotted the kick for a 33-29 lead and that’s how it stayed until Spencer’s errant pass went straight into touch.

Hal Sever

Hal Sever, the oldest former England international who also played rugby for Sale, Cheshire and represented the Barbarians on eight occasions, died on June 2nd.

Hal Sever played for England on the wing ten times and made his debut in the now famous ‘Obolensky’ match in January 1936 when England recorded their first ever win against New Zealand.

The match at Twickenham produced a 13-0 win with Prince Obolensky scoring two tries on his debut and Hal Sever adding one of his own to finish off a famous victory. Hal went on to play an integral part in the England side who won the Triple Crown in 1937, scoring the decisive points in each game starting with a drop goal in the 4-3 win over Wales at Twickenham.

He scored a late and sensational try in the 9-8 win against Ireland at Twickenham after England fought back from being 8-3 down and, at Murrayfield, he scored England’s second try in a 6-3 win over Scotland.

Hal Sever played his last game for England against Scotland in March 1938, a 16-21 reverse at Twickenham, the first to be televised by the BBC.

RFU President, Malcolm Phillips said, “On behalf of the RFU I was sorry to hear of Hal’s death. He was a fantastic player and his place in English rugby history is guaranteed as a key member of the England team that beat New Zealand for the first time in 1936 and the Triple Crown winning side of 1937. Our condolences go to his family.”

AUGUST 7th DEADLINE FOR LICENSING

Has your club dealt with the requirements of the new Liquor Licensing Act 2003? This establishes a single integrated scheme for licensing premises used for the supply of alcohol, providing regulated entertainment or late night refreshment. Instead of registering with the court to obtain a Club Registration Certificate or other licence, clubs will now need to go via their local authority.

Meeting the initial deadline will make life easier
Applicants have until 7th August to convert Club Registration Certificates to a new Club Premises Certificate or Justices’ In Licence to new Premises and Personal Licenses under ‘Grandfather Rights’. The process is relatively straightforward and means that clubs can enjoy the same terms as their existing licence for liquor and entertainment.

Second appointed date
After 7th August, clubs who have not yet applied to convert their licence will have to apply for an entirely new licence in time for the second appointed date in early November. This process will be much more onerous and will be subject to closer inspection by the authorities.

Every club should have received a guidance document from the RFU relating to the conversion of a Club Registration Certificate to a new Club Premises Certificate. Details are also available on rfu.com under Features. If your club currently has a Justices’ On Licence, you will also find guidance on rfu.com on how to convert this to a Premises Licence and details of how to apply for Personal Licences.

England Rugby acts to reduce injury risk

The partnership of the Rugby Football Union, Premier Rugby Limited and the Professional Rugby Players Association recently announced details of the England Rugby Injury and Training Audit, a unique project commissioned in 2001 to address the risk of injury in rugby union.

The vision for how the sport plans to learn from and use the findings was then outlined in the group’s Injury Risk Management Plan.

The extensive study includes an analysis of injuries and training practices, covering international and club matches in the 2002-3 and 2003-4 seasons. It defines an injury as something that prevented a player from taking a full part in all training activities and match play for more than 24 hours.

The study recorded over 2,000 injuries at Premiership clubs, which translated to an average of 92 injuries per team per season. 263 injuries causing 5,161 days absence were also sustained while playing and training for England international teams (England, England A, U21 and 7s).

Key findings:

• Players had a 1 in 8 chance of sustaining an injury in a club match (12.5%), resulting in an average 18 days absence.
• Players had a 1 in 4 chance of sustaining an injury in an international match (29%), resulting in an average 14 days absence.
• 34% of England injuries (compared to 23% of club injuries) resulted in less than 72 hours absence.
• The number of match injuries sustained causing a subsequent match to be missed was 0.8 per club match and 1.1 per international match.
• On average, 9 players at every club required treatment and rehabilitation each day for the injuries reported.
• 72% of match injuries occurred in contact, 51% of them in the tackle situation.

The Way Forward - Injury Risk Management Plan
The findings have enabled the RFU, PRL and PRA to work together, as England Rugby, on an Injury Risk Management Plan to manage injury risk at the elite level of the game.

The plan, presented to England Rugby Limited in May 2005, includes policies for Hepatitis B immunisation, training in pitch-side immediate trauma care, minimum standards for medical and also prehab and rehab equipment and facilities. As a result, Premier Rugby has raised the level of the minimum standards criteria for medical equipment and training at all Premiership clubs and has provided funds to help clubs comply with the criteria.

At the start of June the Premiership clubs and the RFU, with the support of the PRA, jointly returned to match and training injury data collection.

To help further reduce the risk of players suffering injuries and the number of days lost through injury, an application for funding has been made to the International Rugby Board, for detailed research over an 18 month period, into injuries relating to the tackle.

Sevens Season Ends in Paris

England finished third in this season’s IRB World Sevens series after the final two tournaments of the season in London and Paris. Coach Mike Friday’s young side surged into the final at Twickenham where they were beaten 21-12 by South Africa.

And they lost their grip on overall second place at Paris, where South Africa beat them 26-19 in the Plate final and Fiji edged past them in the standings when they reached the final proper at the Stade Jean Bouin. New Zealand, who won four of the seven tournaments on the circuit, again topped the rankings with 116 points, with Fiji on 88 and England on 86.

This season England won the Dubai title, reached the semi-finals or better at four other events and were narrowly beaten in the semi-finals of the IRB World Cup Sevens. In Paris, Saracens wing Richard Haughton became the second player to score 100 sevens tries for England and the first, Ben Gollings, extended his world record points tally to 1,225.

“We’ve introduced a lot of young players to the squad, so in that context we can take a lot of positives away from this season,” said Friday. “But we do set ourselves very high standards and the players should be aiming to go on and win the IRB title. We’ve got the talent and we’ve shown that this season in patches.”

JOHN PRODGER MBE

The Rugby Football Union was saddened to announce the death of RFU Council member John Prodger MBE, who died on 27th May.

John joined the Council in 1998 and held various posts serving on the Remuneration Panel, Students Committee and Nominations Panel, as well as being a Trustee of the RFU Pension Fund.

In his playing days, he was an Oxford Blue in 1955 and represented both the East Midlands, 1954, and Surrey, 1956-1960, and was Chairman of Oxford University RFC from 1997 to the present day.

RFU President Malcolm Phillips said: “John Prodger was a man of quiet substance who worked hard for Oxford University and the RFU. His expertise and experience, stemming from a long and distinguished career in human resources, will be greatly missed at Twickenham.”

In his business life, John held various management roles and worked for many years for both Tate & Lyle and Rothmans International plc. He was also a member of the Grand Council of the CBI for five years.

CONTINUUM DISPENSATION

In the rugby game involving players under the age of 13 and upwards, players cannot play rugby, or any variation of it, wearing glasses as this is a danger to the player and to others on the field.

In order to remove this potential barrier to participation, the RFU Director of Community Rugby has given the following dispensation for children in the Continuum (U7 to U12) age grades only:

Players may wear specially designed and manufactured ‘goggles’ on the understanding that the child’s optician certifies that:

‘They allow the player to have properly corrected vision and do not substantially restrict any normal field of vision. They do not constitute a physical danger to the wearer or other players.’

The first pair of approved spectacles taken into use were provided by David Cashmore, Specsavers Opticians, 14/15 New Street, Birmingham, B2 4RQ - 0121 616 2220. As this is a national chain, these should be available throughout the country.

It is hoped that by the time the children wearing such goggles reach the U13 playing age, they might be suitable for the wearing of contact lenses and so continue in their chosen sport.

Pictured wearing a pair of the goggles is 6 year old Declan McNamara, an U7 player at Moseley RFC.

Player’s suspension increased

By Dave Barton, Regional Media Manager

Adam Dean of Chester RFC recently had his suspension from participation in rugby union increased to two years. Dean was originally banned on 5th April for one year by the Rugby Football Union after testing positive for the banned substance 19-norandrosterone at an England 18 Group squad session on 12th February 2005.

The decision was reviewed by the Anti-Doping Advisory Committee of the International Rugby Board, who directed that the case should be looked at again by an independent RFU review panel. The review panel ordered that Dean be banned for two years, from the initial suspension date of 16th March 2005 to 15th March 2007.

Review chairman Dr Matthew Lohn said: “Adam again conducted himself very well and we noted that he was a young man of good character with excellent references.

“It was apparent that he had not received sufficient education about anti-doping until he was a member of the England 18 Group squad when he first became aware of the issues involved and was subsequently tested for the first time. However, although we felt some sympathy for the approach adopted by the original disciplinary panel, there were no exceptional circumstances to allow a reduction in suspension from the mandatory period of two years to one year following a positive test for steroids. Therefore, the mandatory period should stand in this case.”

The RFU condemns the use or distribution of prohibited substances or methods as defined or listed by the International Rugby Board and the World Anti-Doping Agency. The RFU undertakes approximately 340 tests per annum within a robust drug testing system operated and co-ordinated by UK Sport and complemented by an education programme.

Last month, a RFU Community Rugby Medical Officer (CRMO) was appointed who will focus on this issue, while an RFU Anti-Doping Group has also been formed. The CRMO will work directly with junior clubs to develop further the education packages that are in place and deliver information to help players and coaches at all levels of the game.

Competitors Share Coaching Experience

In the RBS 6 Nations, European Cup and throughout the playing season they are the fiercest of combatants but recently elite coaches from the competing nations got together in Paris for the first Six Nations elite coaching conference.

Devised by the elite coach development managers of the six Unions, the conference was supported by the Six Nations Committee through its Technical Working Party as well as the Training and Development Departments of the IRB.

The RFU’s Head of Elite Coaching, Kevin Bowring, helped to organise the event. Six coaches were invited from each of the six nations and from England the delegates were: Nigel Melville, England U19 coach Tosh Askew, National Academy coaches Dorian West and Jon Callard, Leicester Tigers Academy Manager Andy Key and Bristol Shoguns coach Richard Hill. Among the presenters was Rod Macqueen, former Australian World Cup winning coach, and topics covered in workshops included leadership, captaincy, coaching philosophy and coaching mental skills.

Said Kevin Bowring, “Elite coaches from every nation have very similar experiences and difficulties and this conference allowed coaches to share ideas outside the competitive environment. Everyone was prepared to contribute and to learn from each other and it proved a very worthwhile conference.”

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