Breakdown clearouts have made the game far more hazardous
There’s an old saying that trouble always come in threes and as far as rugby is concerned that certainly seems the case. First, we had the limited game of pick up and go with the inevitable box-kick finish which is boring and driving fans from the game.
Second, the talk of the Premiership effectively isolating themselves from the rest of the game while still trying to take RFU money and, third, the spectre of dementia compensation is raising its ugly head once more.
It wasn’t long after the announcement that a number of players from NFL had sued American Football in 2011 for their early onset of dementia and won, that soccer and rugby came under the spotlight.
There is no doubt that taking part in any form of activity, sporting or otherwise, can lead to some long term consequences, both potentially good and bad.
Who would have thought that the impact of heading a football, even the heavy leather ones we all used up until the 70s/80s, in soccer could cause a long-term illness?
As far as rugby is concerned, players have always accepted the possibility of some body damage, broken nose, cauliflower ears, joint injuries etc, just as with any sporting activity which involves physical contact – but brain damage?
The idea that a series of minor head injuries could result in early onset dementia was something that no one in or out of rugby or any other sports, had ever contemplated.
One thing that has to be remembered is that it has always been against the laws of the game to deliberately make contact with an opponent’s head in any facet of play.
Even in scrums where heads are always in close proximity, the heads should not make contact – but it sometimes happens, usually as the result of poor technique or an accident.
Rugby has always had some sort of protocol, even before the official HIA, that if a player suffered a head injury he would not be picked until he felt able to play the game again.
I picked up only one serious concussion while playing in a career that spanned over 30 years, which was against Ireland in 1989 when cleaning up a bad tap from the lineout. As I dropped on the ball Jimmy McCoy decided he would convert it but missed the ball and kicked my head instead.
The result was I played on for 20 minutes before being taken off but was not picked to play in the remaining England games that season and probably missed out on the Lions tour as a consequence.
It was just my bad luck and could not be blamed on a lack of duty of care by match officials failing to enforce the laws or a deliberate act, it was just one of those things that can occasionally happen.
Unfortunately, some players seem to suffer injuries on a regular basis.
“It has always been against the laws to deliberately make contact with an opponent’s head”
Steve Thompson suffered a serious neck injury that saw him leave the game with an insurance payout in April 2007, only to join Brive later that season, playing his first game in the November.
He recovered from his injury and repaid the insurance company and played for three seasons in France before returning to England in 2010 and playing for Leeds Carnegie. He returned to international rugby in 2011 and signed for Wasps before suffering a recurrence of his neck injury and finally retired from the game.
With hindsight, he would probably agree he shouldn’t have played again after leaving in 2007 but as a professional, the money on offer in France was probably too good to resist.
A major change in the game occurred just after the first World Cup 1987 when training made a dramatic change with fitness coaches from other sports and Rex Hazeldine joined England as an adviser.
His remit covered semi-opposed sessions with scrums and lineouts to pre-season training camps, stamina, sprint, weight, plyometric and contact training and body fat testing.
I will always remember Rex expressing a concern to me about the direction the sport was taking while in training camp when, after a couple of beers one night, he said he was a bit worried at the efforts to turn rugby players into athletes.
“You are not athletes and never should be, you are rugby players, athletes don’t have to put up with the levels of contact that rugby players do” or as he put it, “When Sebastian Coe comes round the final bend and starts to sprint home, he is not hit by a 17 stone prop and expected to get up and carry on but a rugby player is”.
However, it wasn’t the increase in fitness that caused the change in rugby, it was that one player legend of the game, Jonah Lomu.
Lomu changed the game dramatically with his display in the 1995 World Cup semi-final against England as the best example. He changed the coaching of the game from trying to create space for players to run around an opponent, to being big enough to run through them.
Until Lomu, a big back was 90-95kg (14-15 stone) afterwards, every coach had to have at least one 100kg (15st 10lb) plus player in the backs increasing collision impacts.
Clearing at breakdowns has also increased hits and risks, particularly where static, unprepared players are hit by big forwards going at pace.
Unfortunately, player welfare is a moving feast as we advance our medical knowledge. You cannot use what we know today to judge the past.
One area which needs a rapid response is the Women’s game as they are medically proven to be at greater risk of head injury, so leaving their game the same as the men’s is a car crash waiting to happen.
A compensation case against the Unions will help no one because, as the NFL cases prove, as with all compensation cases, the only real winners are the lawyers.