ANDY Keast believes a revamp of rugby regulations could cut down the amount of injuries.

This week, the Professional Rugby Players' Association (PRA) launched a three-year research project focused on player burnout.

It comes hot on the heels of high-profile injuries to a catalogue of England stars while Worcester have also suffered their fair share with Leon Greeff (dislocated knee) and Jon Hylton (cruciate ligament) out for extended periods.

And Worcester's head coach believes the ERC regulations, which force a finite number of players to add to their tally of matches during a season, contributes to the situation.

"People call for the amount of games to be reduced," said Keast. "However, that's too easy a statement. We need to reduce the amount of games players play and our situation in the European Shield is a classic example of the changes that need to be made.

"We have youngsters in our academy who we could play tonight at Leonessa but we're not allowed to put them in because they're not in the 34 players we registered with ERC in September.

"It's those regulations which are causing the problems. It's not the fact that there is a game because, in some respects, you lose momentum when you don't have games.

"A lot of the injuries that have occurred this season have been traumatic ones. At the moment, there is a big thing about player burnout. But traumatic injuries can happen at any time.

"Jonny Wilkinson's injury is a traumatic one. It's not through fatigue because he's just come back. He's just unlucky. It's the same for Martin Corry, Jon Hylton and Leon Greeff.

"We can be very knee-jerk in rugby and say it's because of player burnout. We need to examine the situation a lot deeper than that."

Worcester's skipper Pat Sanderson, who is chairman of the PRA, added: "The fundamental aim of the research has to be to raise awareness of the symptoms and the strategies to help prevent player burnout.

"In the light of recent comments made by high profile England international players and coaches, this research is essential to the welfare of our members."