Growing up in the Northern Ireland town of Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Kathryn Dane yearned to play rugby just as her father had in his youth, but at that time there were no avenues nearby for girls to play the sport. Instead, at the age of eight, she joined the local boys' team, a coup that didn't sit well with some.
"I remember a few of the coaches having apprehensions about letting a little girl play rugby with the boys," recalls Dane, today a University of Calgary Eyes High postdoctoral scholar with the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre (SIPRC) in the Faculty of Kinesiology. "My dad made sure that if I wanted to play rugby, I would have the chance."
It was an opening she made the very best of. In 2019, at the age of 23, she was recruited to join Ireland's National Women's Rugby team, playing at an elite level until she suffered from a brain hemorrhage in 2022. By that time, however, she was also a chartered physiotherapist pursuing her PhD at Trinity College Dublin, researching tackle safety and injury risks for women's rugby players.
While she did play at the international level again, for prestigious invitational club the Barbarians, this year Dane accepted an offer as a postdoctoral scholar at UCalgary.
"It was too big an opportunity not to take," Dane says. "I had heard about SIPRC before I even started my PhD. I knew it was a global leader in injury prevention. I attended international conferences where people like Dr. Carolyn Emery (Faculty of Kinesiology professor and SIPRC chair) were giving talks, and I was blown away by the sheer scale and quality of the work being done in youth injury prevention. I saw how closely they were collaborating with community partners and international research centres in South Africa, Australia, all over Europe, and I thought, Wow this is the environment I want to be in.'"
"I knew it was a huge opportunity to do something meaningful for women's rugby on a larger scale."
Partnership with World Rugby
As well as attracting Dane, SIPRC's world class research has also appealed to World Rugby. The governing body of the Rugby World Cup has partnered with the centre, funding multiple research projects, including Dane's.
Rugby Canada has also come on board with the entire men's national team in town earlier this month, pairing with Dane and other SIPRC researchers to host an evening of training sessions focused on tackle safety. Over 100 young rugby players, boys and girls aged 10 and up, flocked to the event hosted at Calgary Rugby Union, along with over 40 local coaches.
The Canada Men's Rugby team will be back in town Aug. 22 taking on the United States Men's Rugby team at McMahon Stadium, kicking off the 2025 Pacific Nations Cup. It will be Rugby Canada's first opportunity to qualify for the 2027 Men's Rugby World Cup.
Canada has highest rate of injuries in rugby
Tackling is the number one cause of injuries and concussions in rugby across the board and within girls' rugby specifically Canada has reported the highest rate of injuries and concussions in the game.
The notion of safety in an act as seemingly brutal as tackling might appear contradictory, but Dane's research shows tackle technique is a vital rugby skill.
"When executed technically, it can be very safe," she says. "There are many factors at play. The placement of the head, that initial shoulder contact, assuming a low, strong body position. There are tactical decisions to be made with every tackle. I'm trying to give athletes the proficiency to make the best decisions. Also to be prepared and physically robust to withstand the sheer forces at play, whether they are tackling or being tackled."
She adds: "World Rugby and Rugby Canada value the data we collect as they look to update their tackle safety protocols, particularly in the emerging field of girls' rugby."
Video: Tammie Samuel, Communications
As World Rugby's regional training manager for North America, Scott Harland says SIPRC was the ideal partner for the sport's governing body as it looks to reduce injuries and evaluate the effectiveness of its approach to tackling.
"(SIPRC) has some of the top specialists in this field and rugby communities from around the world seek it out," says Harland. "I'm excited about the innovative work being done in Calgary. A lot of it is new to me, and I've been in this game for 40 years!"
Dane's research is of increasing importance as the Women's Rugby World Cup tournament kicks off Aug. 22 in England. Canada's Women's National Rugby Team is currently ranked second in the world and is favored to challenge for the gold at the championship game on Sept. 27.
A fast-growing sport
Women's rugby is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. As of 2021 there were 2.7 million female players globally, a 25 per cent increase over four years. By 2023 participation in women's rugby was growing at a rate of 38 per cent per year.
It seems light years away from the early 2000s when Dane's father had to push for her to play boy's rugby when there was no such team in town for the girls.
And yet, despite tackling injuries being a high priority for World Rugby, there has been a dearth of research focused on female and youth rugby players. "When it comes to medical support and injury prevention there's been a massive gap between men's rugby and girls' and women's rugby," says Dane.
"There's almost no research there, despite the huge level of growth and momentum in girls' and women's rugby."
"I'm passionate about giving girls and women a voice in this field by using qualitative research to get to the nitty gritty of how they experience tackling and injuries. With its wealth of resources and the community partnerships it's forged, the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre at the University of Calgary is the best place to do this work. It's unique and special in the sport injury prevention research world."