The NRL has just taken a giant step forward with brain injury prevention. Other leagues must follow

In a significant development in the battle against brain injury in sport, teams from the National Rugby League (NRL) and the National Rugby League for Women (NRLW) are now required to restrict the amount of body contact^[1] during training sessions.

While the policy has been broadly described as a way to reduce exposure to all injuries, it is clearly targeted at reducing concussion and repetitive brain trauma.

This is the first official contact training limit by an Australian contact sport governing body. It shows that despite decades of rule changes, research and claimed advances in player safety, brain trauma remains a central concern for sport organisations.

What are the new limits?

The new policy makes a distinction between the men’s and women’s competitions.

NRL players are restricted to 100 minutes of contact training during a seven-day period between games – for example, between games that are scheduled on consecutive Saturdays. For shorter turnarounds (for example a team playing on a Sunday and again the following Friday), they will be restricted to 40 or 50 minutes of contact training during the intervening period.

Players in the NRWL can engage in no more than 85 minutes per week on a seven-day turnaround, with the same contact restrictions as the men applying for shorter breaks.

This is undoubtedly a response to emerging research^[2] showing women tend to have more adverse reactions to concussion than men.

There are greater allowances for contact training in the pre-season period, when games do not contribute to weekly exposure to head trauma: 200 minutes for men and 115 minutes for women.

A small step forward

While there are currently no published figures that quantify the amount of contact training in Australian professional rugby league, a 2024 survey^[3] conducted by the Rugby League Players Association estimates most professional clubs engage in two to four contact sessions per week, with each session usually lasting no more than 30 minutes.

A 2023 study^[4] conducted in the UK Super League found similar figures.

So, this new limit may reduce exposure to contact from about 120 minutes to 100 minutes per week, which is positive but not extreme.

The limit will also serve to curtail a reported upward creep^[5] in the amount of contact training in professional rugby league.

What is the scientific basis for this new policy?

Emerging evidence^[6] internationally is showing it is not necessarily concussion injuries that are the driving risk factor for the long-term brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

While concussion itself has its own set of concerns, the greater issue is exposure to repetitive sub-concussive impacts^[7]. These can be bumps, tackles and minor collisions.

These “smaller” impacts still have the capacity to induce forces enough to stretch and shear the brain tissue, releasing a protein that is implicated in developing CTE^[8].

Further, no protective equipment has been able to mitigate the risk of CTE. Only the reduction in contact exposure^[9] has shown to be effective.

Why now?

The NRL itself has not announced these changes. The policy has reportedly been under consideration^[10] for at least two years and was implemented before the start of the 2026 season.

It came to be known publicly through an ABC report^[11] in which the NRL confirmed the new guidelines.

But the likelihood that repetitive head trauma in sport causes neurodegenerative diseases has been acknowledged in Australia since at least the 1930s^[12].

While there is a growing body of research that shows a strong relationship between low-grade brain trauma and neurodegeneration, there is not yet a proven pathological cause for this relationship.

So, these new NRL guidelines are not a response to new research.

Rather, this policy is most likely driven by a combination of factors, including the aforementioned weight of epidemiological evidence, calls from players^[13] to reduce contact sessions, and fears about the increasingly litigious nature^[14] of the concussion crisis in Australian sport.

Read more: When insurers walk away from concussion risk, who protects athletes?^[15]

What’s next?

The NRL’s decision not to publicly announce these seemingly laudable changes is intriguing.

A cynical assessment suggests the league may have wanted to ensure its policy could not be preempted by other football codes, particularly the Australian Football League (AFL), which is also considering the introduction of limits on contact training^[16].

The “quiet” introduction of contact training limits therefore shows rugby league to be taking the lead on concussion by heeding calls from researchers and advocates to reduce cumulative head impact exposure through structural changes, at a time when the AFL is facing criticism for promoting an unproven helmet design^[17].

A new frontier

Regardless of these rhetorical factors, and the relatively conservative changes the new policy is likely to elicit in practice, this is a positive development for brain safety in one of Australia’s premier contact sports.

It is also a clear sign that Australian sporting leagues have breached the next frontier^[18] of the brain trauma crisis in sport, where the focus will be on the consequences of repetitive and often-invisible low-grade brain trauma, rather than solely on acute concussive injuries.

The next challenge will be ensuring contact reductions can be effectively applied to community sport as well as the elite level.

References

1. ^{^} restrict the amount of body contact (www.abc.net.au)
2. ^{^} emerging research (theconversation.com)
3. ^{^} 2024 survey (www.theguardian.com)
4. ^{^} A 2023 study (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
5. ^{^} reported upward creep (www.abc.net.au)
6. ^{^} Emerging evidence (theconversation.com)
7. ^{^} exposure to repetitive sub-concussive impacts (doi.org)
8. ^{^} implicated in developing CTE (doi.org)
9. ^{^} reduction in contact exposure (concussionandcte.org)
10. ^{^} under consideration (www.smh.com.au)
11. ^{^} an ABC report (www.abc.net.au)
12. ^{^} at least the 1930s (doi.org)
13. ^{^} calls from players (www.theguardian.com)
14. ^{^} increasingly litigious nature (www.abc.net.au)
15. ^{^} When insurers walk away from concussion risk, who protects athletes? (theconversation.com)
16. ^{^} contact training (www.espn.com.au)
17. ^{^} unproven helmet design (www.abc.net.au)
18. ^{^} the next frontier (manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk)