Despite changing directives, unless players take fewer blows by playing fewer games do not expect any good news soon
A year ago last week, rugby was thrown into turmoil. Steve Thompson, a 2003 World Cup winner, announced that he and seven other former players were launching a lawsuit against World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union and the Welsh Rugby Union, after their diagnoses of dementia or, in the case of the 31-year-old Adam Hughes, post-concussion syndrome. The players with dementia were all in their early 40s.
The eight have since been joined by another 150, drawn from the same generation, with a further 75 from rugby league. Fifty more, and counting, wait in the wings weighing up their options. Of the 150, half have been diagnosed, the other half have been tested and await results, but all report similar unnerving symptoms.
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