ArticleBMJ open sport & exercise medicine2025
High tackle headache: implications of referee agreement for tackle height law change.
Article in BMJ open sport & exercise medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Whistleblower: the front line and critical facilitator for injury prevention policy?Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives: 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. Methods: 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. Results: 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. Conclusion: These results suggest a need for improved referee training to support changes to the legal tackle height.
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