MATTHEW BURBIDGE, SAPA, Johannesburg | Monday
SEVENTEEN South African rugby players have been killed since 1996 – and 38 have been paralysed, raising questions about the level of coaching expertise in this rugby-mad country. Sisanda Nombekela (18) was buried at Libode near Umtata over the weekend.
He was injured while playing against a King William’s Town team and died on April 11 after suffering a blood clot to the brain.
Hendrik van der Walt from Bloemfontein was also buried recently after suffering severe concussion and 17-year-old Thembisile Nqinekile also died from as yet unspecified wounds.
Dr Ismael Jakoet, a trustee of the Chris Burger/Petro Jackson Players Fund for rugby players who have been injured, said in the last three months there had seen a surge in the number of catastrophic injuries to schoolboys.
”We have asked ourselves ‘what is happening, what is going on’ – the laws haven’t changedwe are definitely concerned”.
”We will now start investigating each case to find out if there is a common factor. Is it the referees, the coaches, the individuals themselves, or the playing surfaces or medical care at fault? We need to find out exactly what it is – we can’t lay the blame without finding out.”
”If we need to call all the rugby CEO’s of all the provinces to a meeting, or all the coaches, we will do it”. Jakoet said that the two biggest factors that contribute to rugby injuries are when the player is not fit enough or there was a poor level of coaching expertise.
Jakoet said rugby injuries and deaths in SA were ”probably” comparable to numbers in Australia and New Zealand, and he would be getting the figures ‘in the next couple of days’.
At Nombekela’s funeral, South African Rugby Football CEO Mveleli Ncula said: ”such a high number of serious injuries is unprecedented in South African rugby. Injuries of this nature occasionally occur at the start of the season because in most cases players are still not fit enough”.
Ncula said Sarfu’s official charity fund was working hard at educating players, coaches, referees and the public about how to prevent neck and spinal injuries.
”The fund, however, faces may obstacles… Statistics show that the majority of these injuries occur in outlying areas where it has traditionally been hard to educate communities…”
Ncula said one of the fund’s major projects was what he termed SA Rugby Spine Line, a reaction service that was on call 24 hours a day to deal with neck and spinal injuries.
”On many occasions, rugby players young and old have been able to walk again due to swift assistance through this initiative.”
Sarfu representative Anthony Mackaiser said he didn’t believe that the coaches were solely to blame.
”Can’t you can’t point a finger at the coaches – at the beginning of a season all players have to be fit and they have to be coached. They need to know how to take a tackle and how to tackle and what position to keep their head in.
”Rugby is a contact sport and there are risks involved it’s never pleasant when rugby players are killed.” – Sapa