At the end of this academic year, thirty students across Years 11 and 12 will depart for a rugby tour of South Africa. In which, they will play fixtures against three local high schools and have the opportunity to sample all that South Africa has to offer. Throughout this term, students have been participating in preseason training in order to prepare for the tour.
Alongside Eltham College’s proactive approach to ensuring that our contact rugby is delivered safely and to the highest possible standard, I am delighted to announce a partnership with market leaders OPRO Gumshields and Prevent Biometrics. The foundation of this partnership is the provision of the latest technology to monitor head injury impacts whilst playing rugby. All thirty members of the touring party will receive a V2.0 Head Impact Monitoring Mouthguard (IMM), with data being shared with World Rugby as part of their pilot study across school and community-level rugby in the UK. World Rugby is a leader in advancing the understanding of head impacts across the sport and is committed to reducing the head forces experienced by players at all levels of the game. Prevent’s data is being used by rugby stakeholders in making recommendations to further inform rugby’s injury-prevention strategies as the sport continues its research-led drive to protect players at all levels of the game. Prevent’s IMM is used to monitor contact workload in matches and training. In support of World Rugby research and player welfare projects, over 3,000 players have used Prevent Biometrics IMM’s in the community and elite professional rugby union game in the past two years. Eltham College has been selected as one of two schools nationally to participate in the study, having initially used the devices at Rosslyn Park National Sevens in March. Further information on the study can be found here.
Further information on the tour, our fixtures and our exciting partnership can be found on X (ElthamCollRugby).
