This study aimed to quantify the frequency of individual and team contact events during rugby union match play in top domestic and international men`s and women`s competitions. Analyst-coded player individual and team contact event types (tackles, carries, attacking rucks and defensive rucks, lineouts, scrums and mauls) from the 2022/2023 rugby union season were analysed from top domestic and international competitions across the world using generalised linear mixed models. For both women`s and men`s rugby, competitions generally had similar numbers of contact events per playing position. Where differences were observed, most ranged between 0.5 and six per contact event per full game equivalent (FGE). Similar trends were observed when comparing women`s to men`s rugby. However, within-game accumulation of these different contact events for certain positional groups may have a significant impact (e.g., a front five player called up from a Farah Palmer Cup team to play in WXV1 could be involved in as much as 6 more attacking rucks, 3 more tackles and 5 more mauls per game on average). Furthermore, the small differences between competitions per FGE may accrue across matches and thus result in far greater exposures across a season (e.g., a front five player in Premiership Rugby may make 48 more tackles over 20 matches than in Top 14 on average). Although a high proportion of contact events per FGE were similar between competitions and sexes per playing position, differences that were observed may have important implications for players transitioning between competitions and the long-term exposure of players to higher-risk contact events. Summary In top domestic and international women`s and men`s rugby union competitions, players generally experienced similar numbers of contact events per playing position per FGE. However, differences observed in some positional groups may significantly affect the total number of contact events experienced per FGE when transitioning between domestic and international competitions and the exposure to certain contact events across a competitive season. Data presented provide a reference for practitioners working in top women`s and men's leagues across the world with which to guide conditioning of players for the demands of the game, whereas policymakers can use the information to inform decisions regarding player welfare, for example, strategies to reduce exposure to the most frequently occurring high-risk contact events.
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