RUGBY:I’m done with rugby for the summer which will give me a chance to recover from a game that has vastly sped up over the years as well as the increase in players’ size and conditioning, writes BOB CASEY

UNFORTUNATELY, Saturday’s 32-23 defeat to the Leicester Tigers summed up the London Irish campaign. At least Saracens’ defeat of Harlequins means we have qualified for the Heineken Cup next season so we don’t have to rely on Quins winning the Amlin Challenge or Northampton beating Leinster on Saturday week in Cardiff.

That greatly assists my diary for next Monday as it would be difficult to start picking apart the Saints if London Irish needed them to defeat my old club Leinster to ensure we get to play top tier European rugby in my last season as a professional. Anyway, crisis averted.

As usual, we were excellent in the initial stages of our visit to Welford Road, leading 23-8 with only 11 minutes of a long, hard rugby season to be played.

The Tigers had already secured a home semi-final, against Northampton as it turns out, but they wanted top spot in the Guinness Premiership and a gut-check ahead of the Saints’ visit this Saturday.

They crossed our try line four times in those last 11 minutes. We seemed to have weathered the worst of it by standing firm against six scrums and two lineout drives but the Tuilagi brothers had the final say.

Yet again, we simply couldn’t seal the deal. The club have already embarked on a big recruitment drive but we are all aware that an honest appraisal of how we squandered several commanding leads, like Saturday’s, is vital if we are to become title contenders again next season.

Qualification for Europe is small comfort right now but it will mean a hell of a lot come October. On further reflection on this season, as I pack my bucket and spade, I have spent too much time on the couch watching games. Yet from this comfortable setting I can’t help noticing reactions to rugby’s increased physicality.

The “Oohs and Ahhs” I’m hearing from friends at the big hits has certainly become more pronounced.

I came across research by Dr Brian Cunniffe from the English Institute of Sport that notes the rugby injury rate has risen from 67 injuries per 1,000 playing hours in 1994 to 91 in 2009. It must be well over 100 in 2011.

Dr Cunniffe also pointed out a 25 per cent increase in the average size of a 1971 Lions tourist to the 2009 squad member that toured South Africa. Or to highlight that further, the ’09 centre Jamie Roberts was 27 kilos heavier than his ’97 counterpart Alan Bateman.

Body shape is becoming increasingly closer to Rugby League, with Roberts and Welsh scrumhalf Mike Phillips physically capable of playing anywhere in the backrow.

There have been calls to curb the “dominant hit” by bringing the legal level of impact from the shoulders to the chest.

I don’t know if I could endorse that. It would certainly put a lot of Islanders out of business! Personally, I don’t feel the increased impact on the pitch but I’ve been at this for a long time now and my body is well conditioned.

The monster tackles are not as bad as they seem. The ethos of the game has not changed; it is still 15 men trying to beat lumps of 15 other guys.

The Premiership certainly errs more towards the power game over the more subtle, skilful approach.

Gone are the English clubs, like Wasps and Leicester, dominating Europe. True, the Tigers and Northampton Saints remain annual contenders but they seem reliant on the Tuilagis or Soane Tonga’uiha bashing holes and waiting for the missed tackle to score a try via blunt force, as opposed to the invention we see on a weekly basis from Leinster or even Old Belvo in the AIL final.

Ulster played the better rugby and had a superior skill-set in their defeat to Northampton in the quarter-final but it was the sheer physicality of the Saints pack that told as Ulster got beaten up in both set-piece and mauls. The Saints shouldn’t be seen as power merchants either as winger Chris Ashton and fullback Ben Foden are proven international class attackers.

Anyway, the meat head approach to rugby doesn’t carry much water anymore.

I’m a big secondrow and long gone are the days when I can hit my quota of rucks, own my lineout ball and be safely back on a barstool by 6pm.

Leinster coach Joe Schmidt said recently that all players must be active all the time. My coach Toby Booth calls it “frequency of involvement”. Even when you are blowing hard they want you hitting a ruck or running a decoy line.

Even the lumbering forward has more touches, makes more tackles and has had to become a “footballer” as my old SCT coach and Kerryman Vinny Costello used to say.

This guarantees an increase in negative contributions. It may be an ineffective cleanout, getting caught out of the defensive line or a handling error. Ultimately though, such errors should improve a player.

The rapidly accelerated pace of the game is unmistakable. I asked our video analyst Rich Whiffen for some stats to back this up. The ball is in play on average one minute and 30 seconds longer than last season. It might not sound a lot, but trust me that is some leap if you are out on the field. Also, the number of average phases has increased by three.

It certainly makes for a better spectacle as the referee waves play on unless there is a serious injury or a frontrower goes down. Gone are the days when Captain Casey can tie his bootlace and everyone will wait.

We do have a call to counteract this. “Bobby Boucher”, after The Waterboy character played by Adam Sandler, means one of our props will take a knee. Some Irish sides use “Kit-Kat” (Have a break, Have a . . . ) to find that second, third or even fourth wind.

It is that fast out there nowadays a team cannot carry anyone anymore. That has led to a decrease in selection of your one-dimensional big scrummaging props.

The GPS tracking system on every player means there is no place to hide (watch for those clever clogs jogging on the spot during a break in play to keep up their yardage!).

The advancements in training are remarkable with the two-hour pitch work now confined to history as the main focus goes into replicating prolonged match situations at least once a week so it is not a shock to the system come Saturday afternoon.

Everyone must be in decent condition, making pre-season work on strengthening areas of weakness, like knees or shoulders, that more important. At any time in a season up to 25 per cent of a Premiership squad will be injured so prehab and rehab are crucial.

It makes it even more astonishing that Leinster could perform so seamlessly on Friday night against Glasgow having made 10 changes. It shows the value of a big squad. With no passengers.

The manner in which they have peaked this season for the Heineken games shows excellent planning too. One more to go and considering I’m done with rugby for the summer I’ll reveal all I know about Northampton next weekend.