Premiership Rugby faces dilemma of marketing game while keeping it safe - and they've got the balance all wrong

The suggestion of an extended season is being mooted, and has not been well received

Billy Vunipola has warned young rugby players about the demands on the human body (Getty)

Premiership Rugby’s marketing men have a tough gig at the moment.

On one hand, the blood and thunder gladiatorial collisions that are now a given in any game of professional rugby sells tickets, is loved by television company executives and gets clicks on YouTube. Big hits are sexy.

On the other hand, there is increasing concern the sheer brutality of the sport amid mounting evidence that – despite what the RFU controlled injury audit claims each year – injuries are mounting at an alarming rate as a direct result of the sport’s biggest selling point.

Big hits might be sexy, but they hurt. A lot.

It is truly a quandary for a sport in which its administrators tell us “player welfare is our number one priority”.

And yet this, from Wasps director of rugby Dai Young this week as he sought to explain an unprecedented injury crisis afflicting his squad ahead of their Aviva Premiership clash against defending European champions Saracens on Sunday.

“It’s very hard to protect the players,” said the 20 stone former Wales, British Lions and Great Britain rugby league forward and not a man usually associated with being a softy.

“We’ve only had three soft-tissue injuries. Everything else has been a trauma injury associated with the game.”

Young has lost a number of first-team players already (Getty)

The law of unintended consequences determines that actions of people or administrators will always have an unexpected and unforeseen effect.

An example? The introduction of a five minute blood bin in rugby to protect players from possible transmission of blood-born diseases make space for coaches (plural) to cheat the system by using blood capsules to create an unofficial system of rolling substitutions. Bloodgate was the unintended consequence.

Well, despite the protestations to the contrary of a Premier Rugby spokesperson this week, it appears likely an unintended consequence of law changes made last season in a bid to reduce injury rates – in particular concussions – could in fact leading to more injuries. As unintended consequences go, it’s a biggie.

Wasps finished their game against Exeter a fortnight ago with only 23 fit players out of a first-team squad of 39. That was four games into the season when players, in theory, should be at their fittest and freshest.

Every Premiership club employs a small army of analysts and Wasps’ – who will travel to Allianz Park on Sunday off the back of three successive defeats - have set theirs to work analysing contact data from their season so far. Their findings?

“At least 50 more contacts this season than last,” according to Young.

Fifty more contacts a season? Fifty more collisions between giant men, with an average weight of close to 100kgs each, colliding at full pace with no quarter asked or given. With the ball in play for around 40 minutes a game (also up by a 10 minutes per match since five ago) that means there is effectively one more collision per minute, per game this season than last.

Launchbury made an astonishing 27 tackles in one game against Exeter (Getty)

In Wasps’ first 10 minutes against Exeter they defended 36 phases and England lock Joe Launchbury joined an elite club of Premiership players to have made 27 tackles in a solitary match. That was despite spending several minutes before half time having a wound attended to in the blood bin.

The unintended consequence of the 50 more contacts per game? Five matches into the season and Wasps’ squad is, frankly, on its arse.

“Looking from a negative point of view it’s probably not the game you want on the back of a load of injuries and a couple of losses,” Young said, this week, desperately searching for optimism.

“‘On a positive note, as we’ll always take, it’s the ideal venue to go and play when you’re looking for a bit of confidence and looking to bounce back.”

It’s a new twist on “taking the positives” but fair play. Stiff upper lip and all that, Dai. And it’s not just Wasps who are suffering by the way. Far from it.

Premiership clubs on average currently have eight-first team players sidelined through injury. At the start of a season which, should Premier Rugby get its way, will be extended by a month to run from September to the end of June from 2019. What’s the definition of madness again?

“We are getting to a point where something has to give somewhere along the line,” Harlequins backs coach Mark Mapletoft told BT Sport this week as his own injury-depleted squad conducted a live training session with fellow Premiership rivals London Irish in the background.

Jamie Roberts is one of the players who has spoken out against the extended season (Getty)

Hear that? Something has to give. Not something has to be added.

As tough a pill as it is to swallow, rugby’s marketing men and administrators must learn to grasp the concept of “less is more” and not blindly plough on with “more is more regardless of the human toll on the people we claim are our number one priority”.

Only when a massive reduction in player load on a daily, weekly and yearly basis is brought in – through contractual obligation – will rugby’s injury crisis begin to be addressed.

Saracens vs Wasps will be brutal, bloody, engrossing and fast on Sunday. It will also take a heavy toll on each of the brave warriors who features. That’s why we love it. And that why we love the players.

Perhaps the Premier Rugby’s website sums it up best.

“Two heavyweights of Aviva Premiership Rugby come together on Sunday as Saracens and Wasps go toe-to-toe in an encounter where no punches will be pulled.

“And whilst Wasps have uncharacteristically lost three on the trot, they’ve not lost four in a row in the tournament since March 2014 and are at their most dangerous when wounded.”

Told you they had a tough job.