Undergraduate Sports Therapy students from the University of Gloucestershire have taken time out from their summer holidays to work with Cardiff Blues Academy and Newport Gwent Dragons Senior Squad undertaking musculoskeletal screening for injury prevention.
Kate Evans, a Senior Lecturer in Sports Therapy at the University, took students along with her to screen players from two of the Welsh regional rugby teams. Kate said “Screening players for potential injuries is a major part of what we do as Sports Therapists; if we know where players are physically deficient we can implement a prehabilitation programme to hopefully prevent non-contact injuries from occurring. This in turn means that coaches have the maximum number of players available for selection week in, week out. Students were able to administer the screening programme which meant taking responsibility for putting players through the battery of tests. This allowed them hands on experience with professional, national and international players, which as a student is priceless”.
Gethin Watts, Cardiff Blues Academy Regional Performance Development Manager said “the students’ input in to the screening process has been fantastic, and it means that as an academy we can be proactive in reducing the likelihood of injuries occurring. The last thing we want is injuries hindering the development of academy players. Preventable injuries occurring at key times in a players career could be the difference between a player making it as a professional or not”.
As well as working with Academy players, Newport Gwent Dragons let the students loose on their senior squad of 54 players. Kate said that students found this to be quite challenging; ‘It was a great experience for the students to work with senior professional players, some of the squad were over 120Kgs and some taller than 6ft 5”, this meant that students had to adapt to make sure their handling skills were still effective’.
Following the screening, each regional team received their players’ results with tailor made prehabilitation programmes for each player. "We also hope to monitor players’ adaptation to the prehabilitation by screening them regularly throughout the season", said Kate.