NRL needs to look at injury toll: Henry

His own team is decimated by injury and Gold Coast coach Neil Henry believes the number of sidelined NRL players should be a concern for the game’s officials.

The Titans, already without several star forwards for Sunday’s final-round home clash with Canterbury, suffered another blow when retiring prop Luke Bailey was ruled out of the Bulldogs clash due to a serious neck injury.

Already this year, Newcastle’s Alex McKinnon has suffered a tragic spinal injury, West Tigers veteran Liam Fulton has been forced to retire following a series of concussions, and Titans veteran Ash Harrison retired mid-season due to a neck injury.

Henry believes there’s a case to be made for reducing the number of games NRL players have to play in a season.

“The elite players are playing a lot of footy,” Henry said.

“Contacts are getting greater in the game and I think we really need to have a look at the guys like Liam Fulton retiring from concussion, the guys who are retiring from neck injuries and head knocks in the game, and I think it’s on the increase.

“Maybe we start thinking about reducing our interchanges or reducing the number of games the players play. I think it comes to that.”

Henry says he’s not sure if wrestling techniques in tackles are contributing to head and neck injuries, but even if the number of games played isn’t possible, the number of interchanges needs to be altered.

“Going back a few years, we did talk about when the 12 went down to 10 and there was a thought it would go down to eight and then to six,” he said.

“It needs addressing. I think we need to probably have a bit more aerobic ability in the game.

“Players get a little bit leaner and take a bit of the power out of it.”

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