World Cup injuries revive calls for global season

The growing injury toll marring the World Cup has revived appeals for a global season to manage player welfare and improve the chances of teams being at their best in the crucial knockout stages. "People have got to be prepared to say their players are worth looking after and this is what we need to do in the next step in the game," New Zealand assistant coach Steve Hansen said Thursday. "We need a global season and the only people who can do that are the IRB (International Rugby Board)," the former Wales boss added. Hansen's appeal came as he revealed All Blacks captain Richie McCaw will survive on painkillers and willpower to get through the rest of the tournament. McCaw's decision to play on, despite troublesome foot soreness, comes after the All Blacks lost star matchwinner Dan Carter as part of a horror run of injuries to hit the World Cup. By the time the quarter-finalists were sorted out few of the original squads remained intact with David Skrela (France), Andrew Sheridan (England) and Gonzalo Tiesi (Argentina) failing to survive their first game. They've been followed out of the tournament by Australians Drew Mitchell and Wycliff Palu, and South Africa have lost Frans Steyn while Bakkies Botha is unlikely to play again. Several others are struggling to carry on as Hansen said "match fatigue" was impacting on rugby's showpiece tournament. "There's no solution unless we have a global season. "I don't think it's just this year's workload, it's a continuation of a workload," he explained. "Rugby League players get 16 weeks to get rid of all their niggles and have a pre-season. Rugby Union has four or five weeks before they've got to go back into work." Hansen said it was evident both southern and northern hemisphere teams were affected. "Everyone at this stage in the tournament in every team is playing through a bit of pain. "How many Tests have we had over the last six or seven weeks, including the pre-season Tests that the northern hemisphere guys would have had?" Southern hemisphere backers of a global season want the northern and southern hemisphere programmes aligned with a single international window. And Wales coach Warren Gatland, a New Zealander, in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper in August, said: "With World Cups now fixed to start in September, perhaps we should be looking at the fixture schedule here. "There is certainly an argument for moving the whole of the Six Nations to July and August and playing it in tandem with the Tri Nations. "That would allow players to have a rest at the time the Six Nations would normally have been played in February and March before finishing their league and European seasons with their regions and clubs." But for both commercial and historical reasons, European officials remain opposed to shifting the Six Nations from its current slot and an IRB-organised "Integrated Season Forum" following the last World Cup in France four years ago opted to retain the status quo when it came to international scheduling. New Zealand sports medicine specialist John Mayhew has argued the different seasons made it difficult for teams to be correctly conditioned with Tests sandwiched around other competitions.