Speaking from personal experience it does seem to becoming a more common injury. I don't know what this is down to as it just seems to be a case of bad luck! I had acl surgery 2 weeks ago from tearing my acl back in september playing rugby and it was done from just a side step that I had done 100's of times through out my life playing rugby. This year alone at my club, 2 of us have had full reconstruction and 2 more are due to have it done within the next couple of months. In the last 2 years before now another 3 players have also had the full reconstruction. Most where caused with having there knees trapped in the tackle. Before these I'd never actually witnessed people tearing their acl's so like I said it does seem to be happening more often these days and iv not a clue what that could be down to other than just bad luck because no one can prevent how someone is going to go into a tacke and in my own experience it was just a step that I had done 100's of times. Whether there was wear are tear in the acl before this through the years of playing rugby then I don't know because there was never any pain or anything and I guess the only way you could know for sure was regular scans for the players but obviously this would cost too much. Other than that iv not a clue how you could prevent one or the reason for occurrence because to me it just seems a case of bad luck!

As Pengy says, it does seem a more common injury most recently but I'm not so sure. I did mine playing footy in a works comp in the off season trying to keep fit and basically my knee's goosed totally now with cartilage damage and arthritis setting in (ACL's fine but there was too much damage elsewhere). My reckoning is that these type of injuries were just as common as they are now but with greater medical diagnoses and tools (MRI's) etc available, doctors are more readily able to give their opinion on it being an ACL injury rather than just ligament damage. Try this site; www.mcnicholaskneeclinic.co.uk/k ... cation.htm He's the fella who operated on me at the North Cheshire Hospital outside Warrington (top bloke btw)! & is/was the head of orthopaedics at Warrington General Hospital. Always found him very forthcoming with info and he showed a great interest in telling you what & how the injuries had happened. HTH!

As Pengy says, it does seem a more common injury most recently but I'm not so sure. I did mine playing footy in a works comp in the off season trying to keep fit and basically my knee's goosed totally now with cartilage damage and arthritis setting in (ACL's fine but there was too much damage elsewhere). My reckoning is that these type of injuries were just as common as they are now but with greater medical diagnoses and tools (MRI's) etc available, doctors are more readily able to give their opinion on it being an ACL injury rather than just ligament damage. Try this site; www.mcnicholaskneeclinic.co.uk/k ... cation.htm He's the fella who operated on me at the North Cheshire Hospital outside Warrington (top bloke btw)! & is/was the head of orthopaedics at Warrington General Hospital. Always found him very forthcoming with info and he showed a great interest in telling you what & how the injuries had happened. HTH!

Thanks for all your responses and suggestions.

All the information has now been passed on and the ball is now in his court.

Thanks once again

Dave