We know from American football that a storm is heading rugby’s way. The governing bodies must act now As the arguments rage about how best to recognise and treat brain injuries in rugby, clouds are gathering in the distance. There was fury during the summer tours when Johnny Sexton was picked for Ireland’s second Test against the All Blacks, a week after he had been withdrawn with such an injury in the first match. Meanwhile, England adopted a more conservative approach, withdrawing Tom Curry, Sam Underhill and Maro Itoje from their tour of Australia. Still those clouds gather. The appropriate treatment in the here and now of players with manifest brain injuries is non-negotiable, but it does not begin to...
As injuries keep rising, it is obvious that simply penalising players is no remedy. The answer lies in neuroscienceAnother year, another set of concussion statistics as high as the last. Higher. This year’s, revealed on Tuesday in English rugby’s perennially comprehensive Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project report, is actually the highest recorded since PRISP began in 2002.Surely at some point the penny will drop that the red-card wild-west rugby embarked upon officially on 3 January 2017, five and a half years ago, but unofficially before even that, is not working – and it never will work. To send players off and ban them for the ugliest (though far from the only) examples of contact with the head is meant to...
Humphrey Bodington is about to run 14 marathons in seven days to raise awareness of brain injuries in rugby unionHumphrey Bodington doesn’t remember the collision that led him to give up rugby. He can recall the moments before it, how, playing for Newcastle University, he came hot off the back of the first scrum because he wanted to put in an early shot on the opposition. And he can recall the moments after, the way he woke flat on his back, saw the team’s physio standing over him, and how he thought to himself in that split-second “never again” but nothing in between. He didn’t listen to himself. Two weeks later he played again and suffered another concussion. After that...
Despite changing directives, unless players take fewer blows by playing fewer games do not expect any good news soonA 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,...
Evidence of a link between rugby and brain injury keeps rising, forcing us to examine much of what is compelling in the gameJoin these dots. Start with the handful of former rugby players who have spoken publicly about their symptoms. Alix Popham, Michael Lipman, Steve Thompson, Carl Hayman, Dan Scarbrough, Neil Clarke, Tim Cowley, Jason Hobson, Neil Spence, Adam Hughes. Remember that there are at least another 200, from union and league, all showing symptoms of brain damage, involved in the lawsuit against the governing bodies. Add in the research done by the Drake Foundation, the University of South Wales and Durham University. How does the picture look now?At Durham the UK Rugby Health Project has been working on a...