In a major intervention, the National Rugby League has placed firm caps on contact during training sessions, taking direct aim at the injury toll, including concussions, that has long shadowed the game.
The ABC has revealed that all 17 NRL and 12 NRLW clubs have been informed of the development, with guidelines limiting the minutes of contact in both in-season and pre-season training sessions.
The decision to rein in training loads is a deliberate push to shield players from injury, particularly brain trauma, which remains a persistent and troubling feature of contact sports worldwide.
On the eve of the season, all 17 NRL clubs received word that players may clock no more than 100 minutes of contact on a standard seven-day turnaround.
Their NRLW counterparts, whose 2026 season kicks off in July and are about to start their pre-season training, operate under a slightly tighter ceiling, with female players capped at 85 minutes per week across the same window.
Wrestling counts toward every minute of that total.
For both the NRL and NRLW, that figure drops to no more than 40 or 50 minutes of contact when the turnaround compresses to five or six days.
When it comes to the preseason, the thresholds shifts: men face a 200-minute weekly limit, while women are held to 115 minutes of contact.
Sports neuroscientists and neurologists had previously called for Australia's major leagues, NRL and AFL, to restrict contact in training to protect footballers from concussions and sub-concussive impacts.
The NRL also stated clubs should:
- Limit total contact training to no more than 200 minutes per week post-Christmas (inclusive of wrestling training).
- Avoid high intensity contact training on consecutive days.
- Schedule no more than three consecutive days of contact training without a recovery day.
The 12 NRLW clubs have been told that during their pre-season this June they should:
- Limit total contact training to no more than 115 minutes per week, with no more than 35 minutes of high-intensity contact.
- Avoid high intensity contact training on consecutive days.
- Schedule no more than three consecutive days of contact training without a recovery day.
Both men's and women's programs are also bound by a "graded introduction protocol", a five-day buffer at the start of preseason during which no physical contact whatsoever is permitted.
Clubs have been told, "the contact rules are intended to be iterative while the research is ongoing, and data from the 2026 season will be used to inform contact training rules for the 2027 season."
Clubs are required to log contact, but questions remain about how the rules will be policed.
Sources told ABC that policing the compliance with the training restrictions will be key to the policy's success.
In 2024, the NRL introduced efforts to monitor concussions away from games and updated protocols during training.
