Yes / Unlike many other sports, Rugby Union has not permitted players
to wear spectacles or eye protection. With an industrial
partner, World Rugby developed goggles suitable for use while
playing rugby for the purposes of growing participation
amongst those that need to wear corrective lenses. This study
reports on the profile and experiences of goggle wearers. 387
players received the goggles. Data were obtained from 188
(49 %) using an online, 75-item questionnaire. 87 % “strongly
agreed/agreed” that goggles are beneficial and 75 % are happy
with goggle performance. Common problems reported by 49.7
and 32.6 % of respondents were issues with fogging-up and
getting dirty. 15 (8 %) players stopped wearing the goggles
because of fogging-up, limits to peripheral vision and poor
comfort/fit. Injuries were reported in 3 % of respondents. In
none of these cases did the player stop wearing the goggles.
From the positive experience of players in the trial, the goggles
were adopted into the Laws of the game on July 1, 2019. As the
need to correct vision with spectacles is common, and contact
lenses are not worn by 80 % + of spectacle wearers, the new
Rugby goggles will widen participation for those that need to
wear refractive correction, or have an existing/increased risk
of uniocular visual impairment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/17650 |
| Date | 27 January 2020 |
| Creators | Little, J-A., Eckert, F., Douglas, M., Barrett, Brendan T. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Published version |
| Rights | © 2019 Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)., CC-BY-NC-ND |
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