Premiership Rugby Pitch Side First Aid

What does a Premiership Physio have in their Bag?

Rugby can be a very injury-prone sport and the physios or sports therapists need to be aptly prepared for any situation, this means having the right supplies to deal with any injury incident. Unlike Football, there are thankfully different rules that the referee has to observe in terms of allowing the physio or medical team to come onto the pitch.

Football regulations restrict the physio and medical team from coming on the pitch unless the referee is comfortable with it whereas in rugby; the team are allowed to attend to and treat players while the game is still going on. Although time-wasting is never really a concern with Rugby players, this does help reduce players dramatising any injuries for the sake of wasting a couple of minutes while their team is ahead.

In our blog post about Premier League Pitch Side First Aid, we discussed the makeup of the medical team and the roles played by each person.

It's important to note that the structure discussed depends on the size of the Premier League football clubs and therefore the resources they have available which means they can afford to have the most experienced medical teams and various specialists available.

Premiership Rugby is not quite at that level of funding but they still have very experienced medical teams and in addition to a full-time physio; they also have sports medicine doctors and other sports medicine professionals.

This means any decision about an injury is typically well-informed and injury management is key to making sure the players don't pick up any long-term injuries. At the end of the day, the players are employees but they are also in some ways an asset or investment of the organisation so their health is extremely important and even more of a concern in sports like Rugby. 

The video below was produced in partnership with Cardiff Rugby, Gruff Parsons (first-team physio) takes us through the contents of his bag and explains what some of them are used for 

This seems like a lot of things to have for a match day but the number of supplies needed makes sense for a sport like Rugby. You might have noticed that Gruff mentioned contusions, these are quite common in Rugby as they are caused by impact.

Contusions are basically the bruising of the skin and deeper tissues and although they aren't serious; injuries like this still need to be treated so it demonstrates how encompassing a physio's job can be. 

Gruff also mentioned that wound care and Penthrox (the painkiller) are used for more serious injuries which are usually acute injuries such as a broken ankle and of course wound care is also needed for bleeding and cuts. For more information on common rugby injuries, please read our relevant Buyer's Guide.