Wallabies coach sceptical about new contact rules

BRISBANE • Wallabies coach Dave Rennie yesterday questioned new World Rugby guidance capping how much full-contact training teams can do, suggesting it could be detrimental and hard to police.

The governing body has recommended a maximum of 15 minutes full-contact training per week, across two days, in a bid to reduce injuries following a global study on almost 600 players from 18 elite competitions around the world.

Mondays and Fridays would have zero full-contact training to allow for recovery and preparation.

Controlled contact training, in which teams use tackle bags and pads, was recommended to have a 40-minute limit per week. That would include at least one day of zero contact, while live set-piece training would be no more than 30 minutes a week.

Rennie, who said he was still digesting the guidance, which is not mandatory, estimated the Wallabies did eight minutes of contact work on Tuesday, and said a 15-minute weekly cap could be hard to implement.

"Who's timing it? I'm sure there's a lot of work gone into coming up with these numbers but I'm not certain how that will pan out," he said ahead of tomorrow's Rugby Championship clash with Argentina.

"You have to make sure from a training point of view you're getting the conditioning and contact load into them (players) so that they can deal with it on game day.

"There's focus around reducing injuries but the most important thing is ensuring our athletes have the skills and knowledge to deal with the contact."

All Blacks coach Ian Foster said he was unaware of the guidelines when questioned ahead of his team's weekend clash with world champions South Africa, also in Townsville, Australia.

"It depends what you classify as full contact but it (15 minutes) sounds about right to me," he said.

The recommendations are based on a comprehensive review of the latest injury data - World Rugby estimates that up to 40 per cent of injuries are suffered in training.

On average, full-contact training currently lasts 21 minutes per week and the average total contact load per week is at 118 minutes. World Rugby's chief medical officer Dr Eanna Falvey said the organisation's immediate priority is "to get teams to adopt the guidance".

Elite teams such as Leinster, Clermont, Benetton and Southland have partnered World Rugby to measure the effect of these guidelines by using mouthguard technology to monitor implementation and measure the outcomes.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS