Blaze forced to retire

[Teh Mite]

Leicester lock Richard Blaze has been forced to call time on his career after losing his battle against a foot injury.
The former England Saxons international missed much of the 2008-09 campaign with a stress fracture of the foot and although he returned at the start of last season, he suffered a reoccurrence of the problem.
Blaze's last game came against London Irish in October 2009 and he now been forced to admit defeat in his bid to come back.
Blaze, who also played for Moseley and Worcester, said: "It's obviously a disappointing moment when you get to the stage where you have to say you cannot play again.
"I've enjoyed my rugby through schools and age-groups, then into the professional game and I was really looking to push on when I came to Leicester in 2007.
"I've worked hard to come back from the injury but in the end I've been advised that the stress fracture is not going to stand up to the demands of a full-time career and reluctantly announced my retirement.
"I love the game of rugby and I'd like to thank the medical and the strength and conditioning staff, especially Julie Hayton and Andy Shelton, for their help at Leicester for their great support. But now I will have to move on and make decisions about my future.
"I wish everyone at Tigers all the best for the rest of the season and hope they can enjoy success."


http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12321_6457839,00.html



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Such a shame, he was looking to be an outstanding player at one point. Definitely would have been an England regular and would have complimented Lawes well.

 

[Duckdee]

Never saw him play, but it's still unfortunate. Hopefully Parling can come back on form, and be the player everyone says Blaze could've been.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

As above, never saw him play it's always a shame when a player has to bow out to injury, especially as young as he is

 

[mohamed_ali12]

Very sad, considering how close he was to England (picked in the 6N squad if I'm not wrong?)

 

[Peat]

Poor lad. A loss to English rugby. Hope he's succesful in whatever he goes on to do now.

 

[smartcooky]

I have to say that there is a lot more of this going on now than used to be the case.

While there are always going to be the occasional players who are unable to recover from injury and are forced to retire early, there is a disturbing trend emerging with the level and seriousness of injuries occurring in elite rugby. I put this down to a number of factors.

1. Too much rugby.
► Anglo Welsh Cup
► Aviva Premiership/Magners League/Top14
► Heineken Cup/European Challenge Cup
► Six Nations

Some players are being asked to play around 35 club matches per year, plus tests. There are only 52 weeks in a year, and players are expected to front up to the battering for all but 6 to 8 weeks of it. The Top 14 runs for nearly 10 months FFS

2. Players playing while injured
Players are pressured into playing while they still carry injuries. This makes it very difficult for some minor injuries to heal. Also, this can lead to relatively minor injuries, that would otherwise heal OK, becoming chronic and difficult to treat.

3. Insufficient rest time
Six to eight weeks rest after 44 to 46 weeks of continual crashing, bashing and training just is not enough to allow the battered bodies to recover. A continuous, unbroken period of 12 weeks is the minimum rest-time required. the iRB in conjunction with the National Unions, especially those in the NH need to act to limit the length of the domestic and international seasons... 30 weeks for domestic and 10 weeks for international would be a good split. This might mean some competitions would need re-designing.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I really think the Anglo/Welsh cup should be scrapped,
Noone really cares about it,
English/Welsh teams already play against each other in the HEC/Amlin, and it just clogs up the schedule

 

[cyRil]

It's just a reserve competition now for fringe players anyway.

 

[Teh Mite]

I really think the Anglo/Welsh cup should be scrapped,
Noone really cares about it,
English/Welsh teams already play against each other in the HEC/Amlin, and it just clogs up the schedule

The answer is to either drop it as you say or bring back the old knock-out cup then drop the playoffs and make the season a 14-team league.

Then don't shoehorn knocked-out European teams into the Heinekiddy cup. Should knock up to 10 fixtures off the schedule for most teams with more regular fortnightly breaks while keeping it regular enough to maintain ticket and TV revinue for the clubs.

Increasing the salary cap to allow for larger squads and introducing manditory rest periods (similar to the French model) is an option also.

 

[Duckdee]

We should all collaborate and send a proposal to the IRB!