Today was my first day with my field side placement with the All Saints rugby team. There are a club level team based in St Austal in Cornwall and my supervisor is Alex the manage of the Marjon Rehab clinic. It was important to me to get experience working in pitch side in a sport other than the Royal Navy field gun team and i had just recently passed my RFU course 3 days before hand. When we turned up at the club, we had to have a look around the venue to get familiar with the escape routes and where the defibulator was as this could determine the difference between a athlete surviving. All kit was checked for its condition and dates of service and a list of missing and low equipment was made for ordering. After all the admin side of the kit was checked, we then went through common taping on each other. Because Covid stopped pitch side we thought it would be of benefit to recap the most popular taping methods to prepare for when the players turned up for their training session. We covered 2 kinds of shoulder, a mal tracking of the knee and ankle support. We did this with KT and rigid tape. When the players turned up, the first guy that came in for tapping was for his ankle and I took control and did it. I talked to the player before hand to see if there was a particular way he wanted it and throughout the tapping to ensure that i did not apply the tape too tight. I started off with 2 anchor, 1 on top of the ankle and the other around the foot above the toes and then used these as a template for my taping starting at the top anchor and looping it around the heel (calcaneus) and then i used the bottom anchors and wrapped the tape around the rear of the ankle.
The athlete was happy and was advice to have a walk on it to make sure that the tape was not too tight.
The next athlete that came in was a doctor that wanted rigid tapping around the shoulder as he had had several dislocations to it that year and was waiting of the rugby season to finish before having a operation. Because the athlete was a doctor he appeared to know alot on rehab and tapping and therefore I talked to him and went on his instruction because as he said, he had a certain way of tapping to help support and make him feel comfortable. The tape was applied from the upper traps and down the deltoid, splitting the tape so that it ran down the sides of the delts. The tape was then wrapped around the shoulder, wrapping the tape underneath the shoulder. This was a good and benefitial experience for me, because it showed me that you need to work with the athlete because at the end of the day, its them that have to play with it and one method does not for everyone.
The match was a training match with the team spilt down into 2 teams that played against each other to determine who would be on the starting team in the match in a week time. I stayed with Alex on one side as i thought that i could learn more than if I was working with another student. I kept my eye on the game and followed the game up and down the pitch keeping vigilant to any tackles or players that could be injured. There was a guy who stayed down after a tackle and after making sure it was safe i sprinted on with my kit bag. When i appoached the player he said that he had a cramp in his hamstring and therefore i took it through its full ROM and gave him a stretch to them, the player got back up and continued with the game.
At the end of the game no one needed treatment and this appeared to be because it was the first session back and that the majority of them had started drinking in the changing room and therefore we packed up. At the end of today I feel that my nerves from working pitch side was gone and I felt comfortable with the team. I am going to revisit my RFU course info and keep up to date on emergency pitch side care.