Leese Ruth, Kolstad Ash, Sant'Anna Ricardo T, McKay Carly D, West Stephen W
Department for Health, University of Bath, Bath, UK.
Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2025 Jan 20;11(1):e002347. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2024-002347. eCollection 2025.
Rugby Union has a relatively high risk of injury. Early evidence suggests a benefit of lowering tackle height to reduce head and neck injuries, although concerns persist among stakeholders regarding implementation challenges. This study aimed to understand whether referees can reach the same conclusion regarding tackle height in a controlled environment (ie, video) and whether priming influenced these decisions.
Forty-eight active referees completed a questionnaire based on high-tackle decision-making guidelines after watching tackles. Participants were randomly assigned one of two instructional videos containing a high or legal tackle to investigate the impact of priming on law interpretation.
The percent agreement regarding tackle height was 78.1% between participants, 62.7% between participants and an experienced analyst, and 74.0% between participants and a gold-standard referee. Mean intra-rater reliability when determining whether a tackle was high was substantial (percent agreement: 91.2%). For high tackles, 83% of participants agreed on the danger level, 57% on the contact location and 71% on the presence of mitigating factors. No significant effects of priming were observed. Inter-rater agreement among participants and the gold-standard referee was moderate for all items except danger and height, which showed strong agreement.
These results suggest a need for improved referee training to support changes to the legal tackle height.
英式橄榄球联盟受伤风险相对较高。早期证据表明，降低擒抱高度有助于减少头部和颈部受伤，尽管利益相关者对实施挑战仍存在担忧。本研究旨在了解裁判在受控环境（即视频）中对擒抱高度能否得出相同结论，以及启动效应是否会影响这些判定。
48名现役裁判在观看擒抱动作后，根据高擒抱判定指南完成一份调查问卷。参与者被随机分配观看包含高擒抱或合法擒抱的两个教学视频之一，以研究启动效应对规则解释的影响。
参与者之间关于擒抱高度的一致率为78.1%，参与者与一名经验丰富的分析师之间为62.7%，参与者与一名金牌裁判之间为74.0%。在判定一次擒抱是否过高时，评分者内信度均值较高（一致率：91.2%）。对于高擒抱，83%的参与者对危险程度达成一致，57%对接触部位达成一致，71%对减轻因素的存在达成一致。未观察到启动效应的显著影响。除危险程度和高度外，参与者与金牌裁判之间的评分者间一致性在所有项目上为中等，危险程度和高度显示出高度一致性。
这些结果表明需要改进裁判培训，以支持对合法擒抱高度的调整。
