Summary

A greater understanding of which factors affect "normal" career longevity in professional rugby players will allow published outcomes after injuries in this group to be put into perspective.

Abstract

Introduction

Rugby union is a contact sport played by teams of 15 players with different playing positions requiring different technical and physical attributes. A deeper understanding of normal career longevity and how it varies in rugby players would provide a baseline against which career longevity after injury and / or surgery could be measured.

Purpose

To determine “normal” career longevity of male professional rugby union players and to determine how these vary according to age, playing position and career level reached.

Methods

All players in the top 5 worldwide rugby union leagues between 2007 and 2012 were included. Publicly available match appearance data for these players’ entire careers, which spanned the period 1995- 2024, was extracted. Players were divided in groups according to position: “front row”, “2nd row”, “back row” and “backs”. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to determine differences by playing position and career level and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were generated.

Results

3451 players were included of which 1194 (34.6%) played at international level. There were 835 (24.2%) “front row” players, 418 (12.1%) “2nd row”, 650 (18.8%) “back row” and 1548 (44.9%) “backs”. Overall career length for rugby players is 12.7years (SD 3.6) with international players playing significantly longer than non-international players (13.8 (SD 2.9) vs 11.4 (SD 3.8) years, p=<0.01). Although there is a statistically significant difference between “front row” players and “backs” mean career length the actual difference is only 4 months. (12.9 (SD 3.5) vs 12.5 (3.6) years, p=0.015). International players have a 97% chance of playing for 5 years and 76% chance of playing for 10 years compared to 77% and 38% respectively for non-international players. (p=<0.01).
Participation decreases with age with 99.6% of international and 85.3% of non-international players still playing at age 25 compared to 88.1% and 50.1% respectively at age 30.

Conclusion

International players have significantly longer careers (13.8 years) than non-international players (11.4 years) but position played has less effect on mean career length. International players are 39% more likely to play for 10 years than lower league players. These findings put career length outcomes after injury into perspective.