Penny still needs to drop with rugby administrators when it comes to player welfare

There was a Tweet recently posted by rugby journalist Mark Palmer. He accused the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) of lacking the proper emotional response to the death of 26-year-old rugby player Siobhan Cattigan.

The backrow, who won 19 caps for Scotland, died last November. Reports describe how parents Neil and Morven Cattigan observed the deterioration of their daughter’s mental health after allegedly suffering brain injuries while training and playing rugby.

They recounted how she suffered a head injury during Scotland training in early 2020 and another against Wales in April 2021 and believe she wasn’t given proper care until her death.

“The SRU’s default response in moments of crisis is to deflect, attack the messenger, dig out the whitewash … Perhaps then some basic human empathy can belatedly emerge,” tweeted Palmer.

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Rugby’s corporate psyche, perhaps the reason the sport was able to capably transition from the amateur model into a professional one, has also been its undoing in affairs of the human heart.

Less agile, large organisations have rarely been good at responding to events that challenge doctrine and threaten to hurt the business. The rugby product, with its image of robust, honest physical endeavour, close personal bonds and a binding sense of mutual respect, is no different.

People do and don’t understand a culture that occasionally chills. They do because it is a front office defensive mechanism and they don’t because it is a front office defensive mechanism.

While endlessly promoting the idea that the primary stakeholders, the players, are the most important part of the game, the sport can’t help itself when a tragedy strikes and it gets drawn into emotional exchanges with family and friends.

The Munster and IRFU response to the tragic death of Anthony Foley was a striking exception.

Instead, as corporate and personal injury trained lawyers gather, the sport falters by failing to confront the deeply human aspect of what has just taken place, as well as the sometimes messy but growing sense of player empowerment.

In an article written last year and based on interviews with more than a dozen NFL players, executives, coaches, agents, and analysts about the state of interpersonal communication within organisations, the picture was one where internal misunderstanding and struggle often stemmed from a lack of basic communication.

Last year a hard-hitting letter to the IRFU from current and former women players pointed to what they viewed to be long-standing “inequitable and untrustworthy leadership” within the governing body. The group called on the Minister of State for Sport, Jack Chambers, and Minister for Sport, Catherine Martin, to intervene.

The IRFU refuted the “overall tenor” of the letter prompting Chambers to become involved. He expressed disappointment with the IRFU’s response insisting that the Ministers will engage in a “very frank, robust and comprehensive way” with the IRFU on the issues raised by the 59 players who signed the letter.

“Look, I was disappointed with some of the remarks made in a statement by the IRFU, it could have been more conciliatory in its approach,” said the TD.

Pay dirt for the women, the IRFU response seemed dismissive and arrogant. There was not enough soft shoulder and far too much push back. The mask slipped. The IRFU believed theirs was a position of strength, while public sentiment and that of the Minister, who needs public sentiment to stay in office, saw it differently.

There will be a stack of head injury claims landing on the legal desk of Irish rugby this month. They will bring similar issues to those of former players in England and Wales, who have been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and other irreversible neurological impairments, which they claim were caused by playing rugby and receiving repeated blows to the head during their careers. All of them have now retired due to concerns over the lasting effects.

The experience is likely to be wholly dominated by the legal imperative. Rugby will do what it needs to do to win or come to agreement and the public sympathy will rest with the players.

It usually does as people see through cautiously worded statements, although even that didn’t stop the further spread of unrest within the Scotland women’s team.

The turmoil there further intensified in August when many of Cattigan’s team-mates rejected comments from the head of their playing association that gave support for the Scottish medical team and head coach on their behalf. It hadn’t bothered to ask the players before it released the statement.

Unions and associations are both employers and guardians, commercial enterprises and carers. When conflict arises, it is often about where those things begin and end. Understanding that players are important pieces of the industry but not merely widgets needs constant reinforcing.

The long-term effect is loss of player faith in an organisation sworn to look after their needs. The IRFU and their relationship with the women players will take time to mend. The SRU now have a displeased, traumatised team and an openly hostile Cattigan family searching for answers as the rugby world looks on.

Rugby is an emotional space where people are sacrificing their bodies and minds and occasionally their physical wellbeing. An organisation adopting the right posture at the right moment and not treating their assets as people who need to be governed is an incalculable virtue. In recent months Ireland and Scotland have found that to their cost.