by Already there is a smack of League 1 against League 2 in the competition that we could call Rugby against its Players. Forget talent, forget justice; resources tend to influence. That’s not to say there’s no hope for the 295 union players who applied for a group litigation order (GLO) on Friday, far from it.
More than anything else, they clearly need compensation for their conditions, which someone will have to pay. The defendants in the dock – World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union and the Welsh Rugby Union – are the most obvious parties to blame. When it becomes more controversial these conditions are the result of the negligence of those defenders – or, as some of the more extreme theories argue, a cover like tobacco. Over to the courts.
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If we ever get there. Preliminary statements suggest that the GLO is likely to be granted, but not before the players’ legal team gets their paperwork in order. More than the number of rows of lawyers who represented the three defendants, they suffered an early lecture from the ref. “It seems to me that it’s a basic thing,” said the Senior Chef about the medical records that the players’ legal team were supposed to have made available by now. The Court was adjourned until April. Out in time for lunch. Ouch.
Meanwhile, the lawyers for the defendants are already posturing as if they are confident of victory. This should not be seen as good news for those of us who just want the game to survive. The best case scenario is a settlement before this case goes to court, which wouldn’t happen before 2025. But if the defendants feel they can win – and they can’t afford a meaningful settlement get anyway – we could. indeed face the terrifying prospect of Rugby v A Players coming to a courtroom near you.
The image of the sport already feels as if it has been hammering as relentlessly as aimed at its players in the normal course of the game, but wait until its governing bodies send in their lawyers to dismantle the evidence of their fallen heroes. . In this case, the evidence is no more or less than her actual life.
Imagine a ruthless KC questioning Player X about their alcohol consumption, Player Y about drug use or Player Z repeatedly covering up his brain injuries as they did whatever they could to stay on the field in their playing days . Imagine confused players, burly in the dock to tears at the very governing bodies that are supposed to take care of them, whose mantras are repeated over and over again about the welfare of the players and priorities No 1 clanged long.
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Such situations, however hypothetical at this point, should make any right-thinking citizen to just imagine outrage, even if the possibility that the players’ conditions have nothing to do with rugby is real. But the governing bodies would have no choice but to go hard in the pursuit of victory, which by definition means their pursuit of victory and humiliation for the players.
Rugby is definitely not the winner. Any victory in the courts – and a victory for the governing bodies would be a very plausible outcome – would be pyrrhic, with the damage to the sport’s reputation almost as devastating as the concept of neuro-degenerative conditions leading to its future viability.
If nothing else, however, such events should highlight the risks involved in playing a collision sport. If players know and understand these, defenders of the faith argue, then they can decide for themselves whether they want to play them. There may be something in that for adults – as long as best practices in identifying and treating brain injuries are followed. But that line doesn’t work with the kids.
Adult rugby will soldier on, whatever the outcome of this situation. The future of sport will be decided in the schools. It already feels, certainly in the small corner of the rugby world where I live, as if there has been a big change in attitude, among those who play and their parents. School rugby does not compare to its equivalent in the latter years of the amateur era.
The professionalism may be limited to the adult game, but its ethos prevails. Those who are not fully committed must drop out sooner or later, for their own health as much as anything.
To play school rugby at any skill level these days, from around the age of 15, you need to know the ins and outs of the gym. Players have noticed conditioning programs even in middle schools.
Given that at that age some are to all intents and purposes physically adults and others are still very large children, the prospect of injury, whether to brain or bone, is already terrifying. . Sprinkle in the concerns of parents and, lest we forget, the demands of public examinations, and it should come as no surprise that the game will soon be overrun in schools.
If, in a few years, we also have to watch the guardians of the sport evict their former players, their lives in ruins as it is, in a court of law, we might as well turn off the rugby lights now. This situation is extremely important for the players involved and those to come and extremely dangerous for the sport. Let us know that the protagonists on both sides know what they are doing.
