I am sure some of you are aware that their is a mass action lawsuit taking place between rugby players and their respected governing bodies. The players are stating that they were not made fully aware about the dangers of rugby and that more should have been done to make the contact sport safer.
The appeal that the players lost this week was to do with providing medical records showing a history of brain trauma that has lead to their brain damage/disabilities. The problem is back when the older players were playing the chances of having a medical report or file actually monitoring these events is non existent. Maybe with the younger players who have been forced to retire early they will have some medical history tracking their head injuries.
The judge asking for the players to supply a history of head trauma is very relevant to this case and without this those players will be removed from the mass action law suit. The difficulty in proving your Parkinson's and Motor Neuron Disease or dementia is due to the number of concussions that occurred during your playing career is going to be a very tricky one for the more than 1100 players on the mass action case.
I stopped playing rugby in 1994 and if I had dementia now how would I prove this is because of rugby? You cannot as in my playing time there was no medical records kept by anyone unless you visited you doctor due to a broken bone. If you were concussed you went and sat down and if you were not wobbly on your feet or were not vomiting the chances are you were sent back on again.
The sports governing bodies are mostly made up of ex players who were also not made aware of the dangers of the sports besides the real obvious ones. Broken bones and the real danger of in a worse case scenario breaking your neck leaving you dead or disabled. The idea you could become a cabbage through playing the sport was never on my watch list and I dare say that would go for most players as well.
When I first heard about this mass action case I knew they were going to find it hard to prove either way without the medical records. Many of these players had retired from the sport before the symptoms appeared and even if they have medical records after they stopped playing proving this is almost impossible. We know the probability is very high this was caused by playing rugby but these hidden injuries are hard to prove. If there are blood samples lying around from drug tests during their career maybe a new test on those samples would show certain evidence. The chances of having blood samples lying in storage 20 years later is highly unlikely.
The safety aspect and player welfare has changed over the last decade and these players played in the wrong era if they wanted to be made more aware about brain trauma. Common sense tells you bashing your head multiple times is not good for your health so why anyone would put their head in harms way is beyond me. You can almost pick the players out through how they play and them being the macho man has not ended well.
This all depends on who you have looking after the players and I know in South Africa the Sports Science Institute started under Dr Tim Noakes was studying concussions 30 years ago. Many players benefitted from this with players being advised to stop playing. I know in other countries if you were concussed you were ruled out for 2 weeks, but 2 weeks is not necessarily the right treatment and would depend on your body.
Sexton even called some of his concussions phantom concussions even after failing concussion tests. He was selected to represent Ireland 7 days after being concussed and the medical team ignored all protocols.
A good example is Pat Lambie who retired at 28 years of age after suffering a number of concussions. He could have carried on playing like other players did and I can think of a few who fit into the same category being Johnny Sexton and Tom Curry. Sexton has since retired but continued playing after doctors advised him to walk away years before he eventually did. Currie gets concussed regularly and know of at least 3 times last season including being knocked out. Has no one mentioned to him what he is doing to himself? How can you blame the sport if these two have brain injuries in the coming years? Common sense has to be part of the player welfare and not just medical science.
Eben Etsebeth a current Springbok player is being monitored and on the watch list. Part of his treatment was to rest for 3 months and not the 14 day rule which for some reason everyone thinks is the time required to heal the brain.
The sport is generally safe as much as you can make a contact sport safe as we know you cannot guarantee safety. Rugby is safer today than it was 20 or 30 years ago so that is a big positive, but and a big but you cannot think for one minute you will play the sport and come out unscathed. All players receive multiple head knocks and whip lashing type car crash events every season and you should know as a player how bad those knocks to the head are. The players in the lawsuit are taking a chance and they know this. One player has already admitted he was pushed into this case even though he has no brain damage. This player on his own along with the lawyers has done more to discredit this case than anything else. This is simply stupid because for the sake of numbers you are jeopardizing everyone's chances which are slim to begin with.