Rugby:In recent interviews, former Irish rugby internationals John Fogarty and Bernard Jackman spoke with refreshing honesty about their largely successful if injury-blighted playing careers. Both stressed that they wish to remain involved in the game but both also highlighted something which is in danger of becoming an occupational hazard for the professional rugby player: concussion.
Concern in Irish sport is not just confined to professional rugby. Research presented at an RCSI and RCPI conference in September noted that, in a survey of 133 young Irish club rugby players, nearly half reported sustaining at least one concussion during a playing season. More troubling was the fact that 44 per cent of those under 20 year olds did not seek subsequent medical assessment, while about one-quarter admitted continuing to play on while concussed.
Beyond Ireland, there has been considerable analysis of the long-term effects on players of what Fogarty has simply called "repeated bangs". This year alone there has been a series of medical reports on sports-related concussion in Canada (on junior ice hockey players), in Australia (on rugby league players) and in the United States (on high school and NFL players).
The research, which has led the US Congress to consider legislation on the matter, has revealed two worryingly consistent findings. The first is that among young players in particular the incidences of concussion are much more common than previously thought and continue to be under-reported. The second is that sports-related head injuries are resulting in the diagnosis of memory-related diseases among former players that are markedly above those found in the non-sporting population.
In a preventative manner, the accumulated research and the anecdotal evidence from former players suggests that this issue should not be dismissed as another attempt by the health and safety lobby to emasculate contact sport. It is not that. It is more a recognition that such sports are now being played at levels of intensity and attrition never seen before.
And players often desperately want to stay on the field of play or make themselves available for the next game to the extent that they will ignore the potential long-term risks to their health. Most sports organisations, including the IRFU, discharge their duties to player safety properly, though all sports bodies should remember that if they breach this duty of care, it may have legal implications. These implications might include negligence-based actions by retired players against their former club and governing body or health and safety-related proceedings against such employers for failing to provide a sufficiently safe working environment.
This threat may sound distant but the law has a history of effecting change in rugby. In the 1990s, a spike in the number of catastrophic spinal injuries resulted in litigation being initiated by individual players based on the allegedly unsafe nature of the game's scrum laws. The result of that litigation can now be heard in the familiar "crouch; touch; pause; engage" refrain of modern referees.
Maybe it is time for the rugby authorities to pause a little and engage more fully with former players such as Fogarty and Jackman, rather than having to debate the matter in court.
Jack Anderson lectures in law at Queen's University Belfast and has recently published 'Modern Sports Law'
Article first published: November 21, 2010 (Sunday Tribune)