The South African Rugby Union’s (SARU) National Rugby Safety Programme, BokSmart, has been endorsed by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) to make rugby safer in schools.
This is the first endorsement of its kind for BokSmart and ensures the programme is recognised at schools level, which is where the correct values and principles of playing safe rugby can be instilled before these players move to senior club rugby.
Jurie Roux, CEO of SARU commended the WCED for taking a bold step forward in promoting safer rugby at schools.
“The support shown by the WCED, will assist SARU in encouraging the other Provinces’ Education Departments to follow suit, and ultimately pave the way to getting a National commitment at School level to support its drive to prevent catastrophic rugby injuries” Roux said.
According to Dr Wayne Viljoen, BokSmart Manager, this endorsement from the WCED comes at a time where they are planning to approach all nine provincial education departments.
“The WCED is the first to officially recognise the importance for proactive and stricter measures to ensure the continued safety of school children playing rugby under their control,” said Viljoen.
“By endorsing BokSmart, the WCED realises that this programme addresses the fundamental factor of keeping children safer on the playing fields, and has the added benefit of encouraging greater participation in the sport at schools in the Western Cape.
“An important aspect of the programme is to teach safe and effective techniques in contact, which aim to reduce the incidence and severity of injury, make the game safer for all involved and improve rugby performance at the same time. To be able to do this at schools level, lays the foundation for playing safer rugby at senior club level, where we still see the most instances of catastrophic injuries.
“The safest techniques in contact are also the most effective. For example the safest body position in the scrum allows for a more powerful scrumming performance, and at the same time reduces the risk of injury.”
Paddy Atwell, WCED Director of Communications, said that many catastrophic injuries could potentially be avoided with the correct approach to training for and playing rugby.
“The Department fully supports SARU in endorsing this programme and has requested all the schools in the Western Cape to co-operate in making sure that all coaches and referees of school rugby participate in this programme,” said Atwell.
“As the rugby season approaches, we want to make sure that we enjoy the game, confident in the knowledge that we have taken all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of our players.”
BokSmart, is a joint initiative between SARU and the Chris Burger/Petro Jackson Players Fund. The programme is built on the four main pillars of injury prevention, injury management, player safety, and player performance.
A key factor of the programme is to reduce the number of avoidable catastrophic head, neck and spine injuries associated with the game, and to educate on how best to manage them appropriately, should they occur. Any catastrophic head, neck and spine injury, albeit it very few in rugby in relation to the number of people playing the game, is unacceptable. SARU works on the premise that one of these injuries is one too many, and is doing all it can to implement preventative measures.
Follow the BokSmart programme at www.boksmart.com, www.facebook.com/boksmart, and Twitter: @BokSmart