Steve Thompson early onset dementia. Suing RFU and others

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I think it's very sad when ex players decide to take legal action against the sport and governing body they played. There is no safe sport, and if ex players continue to chase compo those sports they are chasing will change beyond recognition and die.
That’s a bit unfair, the firm representing Thompson and upto 100 others have stated they are also trying to get the governing bodies to implement a 15 point action plant to protect future players.

How many families will need looking after belonging to these guys? Whose meant to pick up the bill? The tax payer?

Maybe it’s best left if we all wait for the case to come to court and see if there’s been any neglicence before taking sides.

This is an awful disease which is taking peoples lives.
 

Leftitshort

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You don't need to be the brightest bulb in the chandelier to realise a game like rugby comes with certain risks. People have to take responsibility for their own actions instead of always looking to point the blame at others.
It does come with certain risks, but you would expect the clubs & the union to mitigate those risks. My understanding is that it’s not really concussion in games but thousands of micro concussions in training that go unrecognised or ignored. Rugby, historically has had a ‘man up’ culture problem where these kind of issues would have been ignored or circumvented.
 
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Beginning of the end of the road for hard contact sports where the head is vulnerable?

Once the litigation snowballs and cases are won by claimants it's all downhill. Then really expensive insurance policies or players signing waivers to accept risks in later life?

Rugby Union - how do you change the game to protect players? Helmets? - they provide skull protection but they dont guard against concussion (brain injury). Helmets also give that sense of false protection so players actually go into tackling harder?
End of heading of footballs?
Boxing/MMA will have to go?
American Football too?

Understand objections but truth is there are loads of sports and activities people can get into that dont involve intentional body and moreso head collision/impacts.

I quite like watching Union but as a parent but I'm happy my boys haven't got into it.

Interesting to see where this leads.
 
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Beginning of the end of the road for hard contact sports where the head is vulnerable?

Once the litigation snowballs and cases are won by claimants it's all downhill. Then really expensive insurance policies or players signing waivers to accept risks in later life?

Rugby Union - how do you change the game to protect players? Helmets? - they provide skull protection but they dont guard against concussion (brain injury). Helmets also give that sense of false protection so players actually go into tackling harder?
End of heading of footballs?
Boxing/MMA will have to go?
American Football too?

Understand objections but truth is there are loads of sports and activities people can get into that dont involve intentional body and moreso head collision/impacts.

I quite like watching Union but as a parent but I'm happy my boys haven't got into it.

Interesting to see where this leads.
Maybe not, American Football paid a Billion Dollar settlement I believe and it continues.
 
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Maybe not, American Football paid a Billion Dollar settlement I believe and it continues.

Fair enough, they have however changed the tackling limitations with a view to player protection over the last few years. They dont allow the same level of massive hits now you used to see.
 

Dibby

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Where rugby is concerned, the removal of the need for higher levels of stamina has allowed players to increase bulk and body mass and there has been a significant increase in head and other injuries from the bigger impacts. Stop the clock more and reduce the number of subs so as you cannot bring on basically a whole new pack after 50 minutes and, hopefully, it will have some effect on the damage that can be caused as players have to reduce their build to be able to play for the full 80 minutes

Really sad to hear about Thompson though. Did he not retire after the world cup on medical advice then start playing again only a few weeks later though.

I know we all like to view the past with rose tinted glasses, but the fact is modern players are better conditioned all round, bigger, stronger, faster, and more stamina. Modern sports science and strength and conditioning have seen to that. Substitution rules allow fresher players to come on which is used tactically, but pretty much any modern player would be able to last 80 mins, and even those that couldn't wouldn't be losing 30kg to be able to do so.

You also have to consider that fatigued players are likely to be a higher injury risk than fresh players, so substituions aren't all bad.
 
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Fair enough, they have however changed the tackling limitations with a view to player protection over the last few years. They dont allow the same level of massive hits now you used to see.
Agree it’s not nice to see these law suits, but if it helps protect the players then I believe it’s for the greater good.
 

GB72

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I know we all like to view the past with rose tinted glasses, but the fact is modern players are better conditioned all round, bigger, stronger, faster, and more stamina. Modern sports science and strength and conditioning have seen to that. Substitution rules allow fresher players to come on which is used tactically, but pretty much any modern player would be able to last 80 mins, and even those that couldn't wouldn't be losing 30kg to be able to do so.

You also have to consider that fatigued players are likely to be a higher injury risk than fresh players, so substituions aren't all bad.

I agree, subs are not all bad (I come from the days of no subs save for in the case of injury) but the 'arms race' of players getting bigger and stronger has to stop for the good of the sport and for player safety. Jonah Lomu was described famously as a freak when he first appeared but his size and physique are now pretty much the norm, or at least far more common. With the odd exception, we now pretty much have 15 flankers on the pitch for each side. There may be other ways but the only thing that I can think of to try and impact on this is to move the emphasis in the game to stamina over explosive power. I agree that most modern players can last 80 minutes but I am not sure that they could do that week in, week out.
 

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I agree, subs are not all bad (I come from the days of no subs save for in the case of injury) but the 'arms race' of players getting bigger and stronger has to stop for the good of the sport and for player safety. Jonah Lomu was described famously as a freak when he first appeared but his size and physique are now pretty much the norm, or at least far more common. With the odd exception, we now pretty much have 15 flankers on the pitch for each side. There may be other ways but the only thing that I can think of to try and impact on this is to move the emphasis in the game to stamina over explosive power. I agree that most modern players can last 80 minutes but I am not sure that they could do that week in, week out.

The thing is, unless you impose a weight limit, how do you stop it?

Modern diets, training methods, pharmaceuticals etc.. will continue to evolve, allowing for more and more freak athletes, it's just in most sports the athletes aren't setting out to smash each other. This is going to be a tough issue for contact and combat sports to solve.
 

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Indeed, it does make you wonder if children should be playing sports like this.

Would be interesting to see at what age it becomes a factor, most kids don't even play contact rugby until about 10-11, and even there it's not very high impact. It porably starts to become more of a risk at 14-16 depending on how fats the kids develop.

At what point do you allow people to accept risks though? I realsie kids can't necessarily make informed choices, but how about for adults? Lots of things are bad for us, but we choose to accept the risk, be it from drinking and smoking, to playing sports where you get hit.
 

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Would be interesting to see at what age it becomes a factor, most kids don't even play contact rugby until about 10-11, and even there it's not very high impact. It porably starts to become more of a risk at 14-16 depending on how fats the kids develop.

At what point do you allow people to accept risks though? I realsie kids can't necessarily make informed choices, but how about for adults? Lots of things are bad for us, but we choose to accept the risk, be it from drinking and smoking, to playing sports where you get hit.

Problem that I have seen with my nephew and his friends is that they are already hitting the gym to bulk up at 13-14 to improve their game.
 

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Would be interesting to see at what age it becomes a factor, most kids don't even play contact rugby until about 10-11, and even there it's not very high impact. It porably starts to become more of a risk at 14-16 depending on how fats the kids develop.

At what point do you allow people to accept risks though? I realsie kids can't necessarily make informed choices, but how about for adults? Lots of things are bad for us, but we choose to accept the risk, be it from drinking and smoking, to playing sports where you get hit.
My lad played rugby up and until around 13. He didn't enjoy getting walloped, I didn't enjoy watching him get walloped, so I was very happy when he said he wanted to try something else. 13-14 is around the tipping point when the tackles suddenly become big, the change between one season and another is very marked.

I'd back up what @GB72 posted, the kids at 14 are hitting the gym to bulk up, worryingly so, and some of them really are built like adults at that age.

Rugby does a very good job at junior level of managing the risks but there does reach a point when you play the game no holds barred, as adults.
 

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Surprised we have not moved to scrum caps being mandatory.

Rugby rules have changed a lot in the last decade or so with a lot of actions now being yellow and red card offences, where previously they might not even have been a penalty offence. However I guess the Rugby bodies will be looking even more at player protection.

Perhaps scrum caps aren't the solution, but likely there will need to be changes to the way players take contact, tackling yes, but especially rucks and malls where there must be huge pressure and weight being applied to some people. You imagine over a 15 year career that will take it's toll.
 

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Surprised we have not moved to scrum caps being mandatory.

Rugby rules have changed a lot in the last decade or so with a lot of actions now being yellow and red card offences, where previously they might not even have been a penalty offence. However I guess the Rugby bodies will be looking even more at player protection.

Perhaps scrum caps aren't the solution, but likely there will need to be changes to the way players take contact, tackling yes, but especially rucks and malls where there must be huge pressure and weight being applied to some people. You imagine over a 15 year career that will take it's toll.

Scrum caps do not make much difference and only offer minimal padding. Again, back in my day, they actually made matters worse as once scrum caps and shoulder padding were allowed, people started taking far more risks as they felt protected.
 

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If you haven't, watch the film Concussion (mentioned in the BBC link). It doesn't cover all necessary bases, but gives you a flavour of the issues and perceived liabilities.
 

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Indeed, it does make you wonder if children should be playing sports like this.

Imo the best sport you could ask for your kids to get into. Team spirit, respect of officials, controlled aggression, importance of teamwork and a great way to stay fit.

Yes, risks involved. But if you wrap kids up too much we will end up with an even larger proportion of kids who have the wrong values and way too much of their developing years spent staring at a screen.
 

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Imo the best sport you could ask for your kids to get into. Team spirit, respect of officials, controlled aggression, importance of teamwork and a great way to stay fit.

Yes, risks involved. But if you wrap kids up too much we will end up with an even larger proportion of kids who have the wrong values and way too much of their developing years spent staring at a screen.

This.

I played rugby for almost 20 years, and I am sure there will have been some impact on my body from doing so (beyond the knees that creak uncontrollably, freaky fingers and shoulder that doesn't quite work) but if I went back and was offered the choice, I would do exactly the same again. Cricket and golf are wonderful sports that I love playing, but there is something intangible in rugby that sets it apart.

Its a dangerous sport. Granted. But risk is an inherent part of life, and the authorities are already taking numerous steps to make it safer, and there is a massive difference between the occasional acts of recklessness that you see on a rugby field and the way Gridiron almost encouraged players to use their helmets as an offensive weapon in the 80s and 90s. And I don't think banning contact in training is the answer - if players don't learn to scrummage properly etc then they are at far greater risk once the pressure is on in a competitive scenario.
 
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Scrum caps do not make much difference and only offer minimal padding. Again, back in my day, they actually made matters worse as once scrum caps and shoulder padding were allowed, people started taking far more risks as they felt protected.
Don't know about in your day but I do remember scrum caps being worn by some when I was at school in the early 60's.

As I understood it they were intended to protect against cauliflower ears and offered zero protection to the skull.
 

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Don't know about in your day but I do remember scrum caps being worn by some when I was at school in the early 60's.

As I understood it they were intended to protect against cauliflower ears and offered zero protection to the skull.

Pretty much the same in the 90s. I stuck to the good old fashioned electrical tape to keep my ears in shape.
 

Leftitshort

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I’m not sure anyone is proposing banning rugby in its current form. I also don’t think that you can compare amateur rugby to the modern professional game. The former was a better spectacle but that’s a separate thread!
the issue for me is around duty of care by the clubs/unions for the players. It’s seems to be in place now, but was enough done when Steve Thompson etc were playing.
was the info on the potential of head injuries available and were the management processes in place.
 
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