Yes, rugby is physical but it is a force for good
The thing about a bandwagon is that once it starts to roll, more and more people want to jump on. That’s what’s happening with rugby and concussion.
Everyone knows there’s a problem, inasmuch as for years lack of information, and the game’s culture, led to instances of concussion being concealed, and ignored. Things have changed, and the game’s adminstrators have taken action to ensure that once a player is concussed they are taken off the pitch, and not allowed back on until deemed fit to play again. In a recent Sunday
Times, David Walsh wrote a piece which was deeply worrying, not because it put the spotlight on the concussion issue, but because it seemed to be based on a couple of ‘samples of one’. Walsh was inspired to write the article after sitting next to a woman whose octogenarian father died after suffering from dementia.
Apparently the medics treating him surmised that his earlier rugby career was a factor in the cause of his dementia. From that Walsh moved on to the example of Scotland having seven players suffering concussions in two rounds of the Six Nations, and with an effortless leap asked the question about how many players are ‘suffering blows to the head which will diminish their later lives?’ That’s a question to which neither he nor anyone else knows the answer. Research is ongoing to see whether dementia is more prevalent among former rugby players, but they might as well save their efforts, because Walsh already knows the answer: ‘The results are likely to be damning’.
He then moved on to condemn the Head Injury Assessment (HIA) programme as flawed, again, on a sample of one. Elliot Daly recently undertook a HIA, passed it successfully, returned to the field, and then took himself off as he was suffering double vision. Depending on your point of view, you can take the Walsh line, or you can be relieved that sufficient progress has been made that a player is prepared to make the right decision rather than ‘toughing it out’.
An article on the same subject in the ‘i’ newspaper, quoted that the frequency of concussions has doubled in the past four years. Is that correct, or is it that more are simply being recognised and reported? Later in the same piece it goes on to say that instances of players who have suffered a concussion then played on have been cut from 56 per cent to one per cent since the HIAs were introduced – and says that’s a big improvement, but it’s still too high! Of course, anytime a player plays on after a concussion it’s wrong, but 56 per cent to one in five years suggests to me we’re on the right track.
Walsh’s dramatic conclusion is, ‘to say that rugby has a crisis on its hands is not to exaggerate’. Really? Where’s the evidence? Certainly not in Walsh’s piece which also tells us that he can sense by the crowd’s reaction that they are worried for the future of the game whenever a big hit takes place!
Contributions to the debate such as Walsh’s do very little – the sport’s authorities know there’s a problem and continue to work to minimise risks, and improve rehabilitation. In the same edition of the Sunday Times, Walsh also wrote in glowing terms about the physicality and aggression that was at the heart of Ireland’s win over England. Physicality and aggression don’t come without risk.
It’s a bit like boxing: we watch it, and are moved by the courage of the participants, but at the same time are uncomfortable with the spectacle. Hugh McIlvanney said of Johnny Owen’s ring injury which subsequently caused his death, “that it was boxing that gave him his one positive means of self-expression…it is his tragedy that he found himself articulate in such a dangerous language”.
Although on a different level from boxing, where inflicting hurt is the object of the exercise, rugby’s a physical sport which carries the risk of injury, very occasionally of a lifechanging nature. The similarity to boxing, however, is that it also does fantastic things for young people’s lives. The changes that are taking place in terms of awareness and treatment of concussion may be overdue, but they’re happening.
Short of banning the game, players will continue to get concussed, but it won’t stop them wanting to play – physicality is at the heart of rugby. The game must keep up with the latest and best thinking, but it’s totally wrong to describe it as a crisis.