Sir, – While I’d agree with Gerry Thornley that “there is no doubt that there is a relationship between head trauma in rugby and neurodegenerative diseases”, it’s probably fair to say not everyone accepts this (“Rugby authorities braced for the implications of ticking legal time bomb”, Analysis, Sport, November 21st). Indeed, contrary opinions have appeared in The Irish Times fairly recently. Even if one agrees, and acknowledges the extreme end of the scale of adverse consequences, it may be the milder potential effects that will make the sport of rugby difficult to sustain.
This month saw the death of Hannes Strydom, the fifth member of the 1995 World Cup winning Springbok team to die. He died in a car accident. Other deaths within the team have been attributed to motor neurone disease, a brain tumour and heart attacks. Which of these might be attributed or associated with neurological trauma is debatable, given its possible effects on reaction times, executive planning, memory and so on.
Even less clear are likely to be matters of responsibility for the players whose subsequent lives are characterised by poor choices and bad decision making, as the cases of suicidal feelings, alcoholism and other addictions.
It is likely to be difficult enough to agree on what compensates a player for the loss of their mental capacity should they succumb to dementia, or of their life to a neurodegenerative disease. But making rugby unions potentially liable for the choices, behaviours and decisions of retired players would be essentially an infinite liability.
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While this might sound alarmist, it is clear that physically rugby players in recent generations have morphed into physiques more traditionally found in American football.
The average player in the NFL dies before reaching the age of 60, thus losing two decades of life. The causative factors go far beyond diagnosed neurological conditions. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN O’BRIEN,
Kinsale,
Co Cork.