US concussion campaigner Chris Nowinski says rugby union’s playing rules and training practices need to change because of increasing levels of brain injury in the sport.
“What’s causing this is the repetitive head impacts,” said Nowinski.
“We need to adjust the rules and how much people play.”
Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster’s Sportsound Extra Time, Nowinski, whose own WWE wresting career was ended by concussion, spoke of his “concern at seeing how impaired the first generation of [rugby union] pros have been by their early 40s”.
“It’s on a par or maybe worse with what I’ve seen with the NFL players,” he added.
World Cup winner Thompson suing governing bodies
England 2003 World Cup winner Steve Thompson and former Wales internationals Alix Popham and Ryan Jones are among nearly 200 players worldwide who are suing World Rugby and their national governing bodies for negligence after sustaining brain injuries during their careers.
Rugby has attempted to address concerns by introducing protocols such as Head Injury Assessments, which see players removed from the field of play and examined by medical professionals who rule whether they are fit enough to resume action.
However, Nowinski insists such moves are not sufficient.
“It’s not just the protocol issue and that we change how we play the sport,” he said. “We need to be starting later so that we have fewer hits to the head over your lifetime.
“We need not to be hitting in practice. And if you play 11 months in the year as some of the best rugby players do, that’s too many hits to the head. Your brain doesn’t have time to recover.”
Nowinski was appalled by last week’s high profile case in the NFL which saw Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffering a concussion against the Cincinnati Bengals, four days after being injured in their previous game.
On the previous Sunday, Tagovailoa looked unsteady on his feet after a big tackle against the Buffalo Bills but was allowed to resume action in that game, before suffering concussion after a heavy hit in the contest four days later.
“The NFL has 30 medical professionals at every game and they missed this completely obvious concussion that I diagnosed from my couch,” added Nowinski.
“We are playing the same games with the same rules with our kids with no medical protection.
“We shouldn’t be exposing children to any of these hard, repetitive head hits until at least 14. It’s insane.
“We shouldn’t be heading soccer balls, we shouldn’t be tackling in rugby, we shouldn’t be tackling in American football. We need to realise that what is happening on TV is also happening to our kids.”
‘We can’t eliminate concussion from rugby’ – O’Sullivan
Former Ireland rugby coach Eddie O’Sullivan said rugby faces a “very difficult” task in attempting to deal with the concussion issue.
“It is an issue and we have to recognise it,” added O’Sullivan.
“But we have to be realistic as well. It might be a controversial thing to say but rugby is a collision sport like a lot of our sports.
“I don’t think we can eliminate concussions from a game like rugby. All we can do is mitigate them.
“I do think World Rugby are trying to mitigate it but I’ll be honest and say I think it’s a kind of a losing battle.
“At some point, you can’t mitigate it any more. You can’t change the laws anymore without changing the essence of the game which is a collision sport.”
