Australia's National Rugby League (NRL) has introduced mandatory caps on contact training time, becoming the first governing body of an Australian contact sport to impose such restrictions. NRL players are now limited to 100 minutes of body-contact training per week during standard seven-day turnarounds between matches, while women's competition (NRLW) players are capped at 85 minutes, reflecting research indicating women tend to suffer more adverse effects from concussion. The move is driven by growing evidence that repetitive sub-concussive impacts — minor tackles and collisions that do not cause obvious injury — are a key risk factor for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a long-term neurodegenerative disease, and experts say other leagues, including the Australian Football League, must now follow suit.