2026 NRL Injury Discussion

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Interesting article about the current injury crisis.

mikemeehallwood.substack.com

Not an accident: How set restarts are driving the NRL’s injury crisis

“The system is always a vast palace, while its creator can only withdraw into a modest corner.”
mikemeehallwood.substack.com mikemeehallwood.substack.com

Some interesting points:
  • 78 players are currently out injured, which means of the 388 players who have taken to the field so far in 2026, around 20% are currently listed as injured
  • Play-the-balls, which are now over 300 per game, a full 45 more than in 2018, or 17% more contact points
  • The Rugby League Players Association (RLPA) would certainly baulk at the idea of adding four extra fixtures to the calendar every year, but they have added that by stealth via the increase in game time caused by the Six Again

20% of the league is currently injured (that's an insane amount of talent sitting on the sidelines), but the bigger one is the increase in ball-in-play time, which is a focal point of Vlando, has effectively created 4 additional fixtures of playtime across the season.

The RLPA are doing a piss poor job of actually protecting their players, but hey they got them an extra couple weeks off each year... although that then means rep players come into seasons underdone, because they can't actually get a full preseason... likely leading to injuries when they can't keep up with the insane speed of the game.

The season is already way too long, but it has to be reaching a breaking point... the NRL and RLPA better hope they get a ****ton of money under this next TV rights deal otherwise the whole experiment will have been a costly waste of time.
 
Need to go through the injuries though and see how many are strain injuries vs contact injuries, then compare that to last season to get the real picture about set restarts and speed of the game. Maybe the article does that as I haven't read yet.

You could argue that some of the contact injuries are due to the players being fatigued though, and contact either slipping up, or head in wrong place due to getting to collision late etc etc.

It's definitely interesting.
 
Brocko said:
Need to go through the injuries though and see how many are strain injuries vs contact injuries, then compare that to last season to get the real picture about set restarts and speed of the game. Maybe the article does that as I haven't read yet.

You could argue that some of the contact injuries are due to the players being fatigued though, and contact either slipping up, or head in wrong place due to getting to collision late etc etc.

It's definitely interesting.
Click to expand...
It doesnt go through specific injury types, but it's mostly about accidents and how they inherently occur under fatigue, so if you are intentionally fatiguing players then more accidents will come and that leads to injuries.

Increasing fatigue and workload would also lead to muscle and soft tissue injuries, so it's likely creating injuries from two different fronts.

I think the bigger more interesting one is the increase in ball in play time effectively creating 4 extra fixtures.

If the NRL went to the RLPA and said we're bumping the schedule up to 28 games per year they'd laugh in their face... and yet it's effectively been allowed to happen under their watch.

That's a huge failure and show of incompetence on their part... the players should be fuming about those numbers
 
It definitely feels like there are more injuries but that is obviously because I support the Broncs who are decimated. However you look at the injury list for most clubs, they are quite lengthy with the exception of Wests really. It’s also headlined by us and Parra having a full squad unavailable between us. Then you also have suspensions because players are fatigued and getting timings wrong. The whole state of the game is a mess.

It also seems there are a lot of big name players out: Walsh, Staggs, Haas, Crichton, Ponga, Martin and so many more. The product I’m sure is suffering as a result. You want to see the best players playing the best players.

It’s also happening in the ESL since six agains came in, so many big name players are on lengthy sideline stints.
 
You hear about the odd training injury but most of the injuries are happening out there in the game
 
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