Knowing when to quit is tough
OPINION: If the mark of a man is make the world a better place, then All Black James Broadhurst may well have secured his legacy.
His reluctant retirement from rugby yesterday was brave, yet leaves the game and its players in a better place.
In walking away from the game he loves to preserve his health, Broadhurst can act as a towering beacon to others. His action was braver than plunging into a boot-flailing Springbok ruck, more courageous than charging the ball up into 115kg human cannonballs.
Knowing when to quit can be tougher than refusal to surrender, even when consecutive concussions were fingered for the deaths of All Black Nicky Allen in 1984, and Irish teenager Ben Robinson in 2010.
Robinson, 14, played rugby for his school. After being treated three times for blows to the head then sent back on, he collapsed and later died in hospital.
Allen was 26 when he died, after a catastrophic head injury in an Australian club game which followed a series of playing-related concussions.
World-class rugby players are not quitters - it goes against every molecule in their muscular frames, even if trying to play the game makes them ill.
How crushing must it feel for Broadhurst to have his promising career ended at 29, after just one gallop in the treasured black jersey. Out years early.
Two years ago, life for Broadhurst was thrilling, at least to the onlooker. It was hanging out with like-minded mates in yellow and black, international flights, rugby games in front of thousands, all of them either cheering or braying for blood.
It was clutching the treasured Ranfurly Shield, hugging it close. Broadhurst was living a young man’s dream. And then ... gone, all gone.
Broadhurst has rarely spoken publicly of his 18-month battle with the effects of concussion, apparently caused by two head knocks in quick succession. He did not wish to talk of it yesterday; at the foot of a press release came this, in bold:
NOTE: James Broadhurst will not be available for any media interviews at this time. He has asked that media respect his privacy.
But actions speak louder than words. In walking away, in facing the bitter truth it’s wiser to call it a day, he is a healthy example to others.
By all reports, Broadhurst has
another career to go to. Not all his nesteggs are in the rugby basket.
He planned ahead for this day, so it is not as dark as it might otherwise be. Rugby’s loss is avocado farming’s gain.
There too, he is an example to those who ply their trade in a job which can be ended in seconds.
It could be the blinding flash of a head clash,the stretching, twisting, snapping agony of a ligament rupture, or perhaps a career-limiting dislocation.or it could be simply the tearing up of a contract.
Amid the sadness, the Hurricanes and NZR deserve credit for their treatment of the ailing lock.
He was not forced back on to the field with a ‘‘we’re paying you’’ prod in the back.
He was not treated like a ballcatching, ruck-rumbling, rough and tumble asset. He was put in cotton wool.
That is not always the way. Kiwis league and England rugby international Shontayne Hape maintains he had his brain function reduced to almost special needs levels by coach-imposed premature returns to the club rugby fray, in the northern hemisphere.
‘‘There was constant pressure from the coaches. Most coaches don’t care about what happens later on in your life. It is about the here and now,’’ he told the New Zealand Herald.
‘‘Players are just pieces of meat. When the meat gets too old and past its use-by date, the club just buys some more.’’
So we can learn from Hape. We can learn from Broadhurst.
No, not can learn. Must learn.