The revelation that Steve Thompson, hooker in England’s World Cup triumph in 2003, can’t remember what happened in the game is shocking. Thompson, like other stars of his time, Alex Popham and Michael Lipman, has been diagnosed with early-stage dementia and probable CTE – Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy – the consequence of repeated blows to the head. That World Cup triumph was just seventeen years ago; Thompson is only in his mid-forties.
We have always known that rugby, in all its varieties and different codes, could damage the body. Awareness of how playing this (and other) contact sports may damage the brain, destroying memory, is more recent. Professionalism, itself only a quarter of a century old in the Union game, has changed so much. We first noticed that players were bigger, heavier and (often) faster; that power had become the name of the game and, importantly, that improved handling skills meant that the ball was in play much longer with the corollary that there was more tackling to be done. Two-man tackles, one player going low, the other high, became more common, and till recently, the Laws of the game did nothing to deter or punish high tackles. We began to speak of collisions rather than tackles and of teams winning the “collision battle”. Moreover, professionalism meant that there were many more training sessions and training hours, with much of this training devoted to contact.
To be fair to lawmakers, awareness of the long-term danger of concussion and head injuries in general, has led to law changes. Any suspicion of concussion or damage to the head is now taken seriously. A player will be removed from the field for an HIA (Head Injury Assessment) and not permitted to return if he fails the examination. Even this is quite recent. Ten or a dozen years ago I remember Brian O’Driscoll and the great Australian flanker returning to the field when looking, even to the inexpert eye, decidedly groggy.
