Column: Concussion still has to be tackled, not just at elite level
About five or six years ago I got chatting to a player who turned out for a local rugby team. This particular front-rower was, I would hazard to guess, around the 30 mark at the time.
Invariably the chat turned to rugby and the new season that was looming up ahead. We talked about this and that - then he made a startling revelation.
He informed me he had just decided to give up the game. He was a full on, totally committed player who clearly enjoyed his rugby.
He was, after all, an integral part of his team for a number of years. Playing rugby was a huge part of his life. So the news he was hanging up his boots was something of a surprise, to say the least.
Further chat revealed how the decision to retire was taken under duress. He was given little choice. He outlined how during his career he had absorbed "a few blows" to the head and had suffered concussion on more than one occasion. He was suffering from headaches and he reluctantly came to the conclusion the best option would be to give up the game. His future health was in the balance.
The player took the medics advice and decided to retire. It wasn't an easy option for him. Clearly it caused the player considerable anguish. After all he was saying goodbye to a major part of his life that had brought him great joy and comraderie over his career.
I thought of that player over the summer when it was announced that a group of former rugby players were taking legal action against the Irish Rugby Football Union.
The company of solicitors involved said they were representing more than 185 rugby players aged in their 30s, 40s and 50s who were "diagnosed with early-onset dementia and other irreversible neurological impairments."
The players, understandably, weren't named but there can be little doubt that some of them, maybe all of them, were high-profile. Every now and again we hear of former internationals who come out to say how they are suffering memory loss, headaches, dizzy spells.
The Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project revealed that concussion was the most prominent injury sustained in rugby for six consecutive year. Has any such survey been done in Irish club rugby? I don't think so.
Former Irish international Bernard Jackman - who brought the Bective Rangers side he coaches to Ashbourne for a Leinster League game last season - has also recently revealed how during his career he had over 50 concussions. Fifty!!. The professional game has its inherent dangers, clearly but so too does the amateur version. There is, no doubt, a cohort of players out there who battled away for years in their club colours that are suffering deeply negative effects of concussion. Logic tells us that's the case.
I asked the retiring club player I knew if he would be willing to go public and reveal his struggles with concussion? How it was affecting his life and that of his family? He was reluctant to do so - and understandably so. He, after all, doesn't want to appear as someone who is affected by memory loss, suffering headaches, dizzy spells. He is still a young man and seeking to build a career with a young family, mortgage and all the rest of it. Rugby certainly is facing into a crisis - at amateur and professional levels - in terms of how to deal with head injuries but it's not the only sport facing that problem. Recently I heard of a prominent GAA player who had shipped a few blows to the head and suffered concussion.
There is constant danger on our playing fields. The other week I witnessed the disturbing sight of a young man who lost a number of his front teeth during a hurling game. It was an accident. Part of an opponent's stick unfortunately managing to get through the visor of the helmet.
Concussion though remains a huge issue for rugby. It has been highlighted at the top level but not among the grassroots of the game; a long way from the big stage.