Brain injury revelations show rugby is still counting cost of 1992 law change

[Heathen]

Stephen Jones in this morning's Times :

We learn history partly to understand the world as it is now. Last week we learned about sub-concussive impact. You may find it remarkable but there is a very powerful lesson from 28 years ago which explains not just the New Age kick-tennis mania in rugby but also something far worse — those impacts and subsequent appalling problems suffered by Steve Thompson, England’s greatest hooker, Alix Popham, of Wales and Michael Lipman, an Australian who played for England.

In 1992 the International Rugby Board (now World Rugby) passed the infamous “use it or lose it” law. This new measure gave possession (the scrum feed) after all indeterminate and unclear rucks and mauls to the team which had not entered the breakdown with it. Previously, the scrum feed had gone to the team moving forward. The age of the turnover was upon us.

It is difficult to properly express the shock so many felt when it was announced. At that time famous coaches tried to enlighten their public instead of trying to be impenetrable clever dicks. As we castigated the law in this newspaper in September 1992, the top men weighed in. “The new law is against the first principle of the game,” said Geoff Cooke of England. “It is an unholy mess, a shambles,” said Alex Wyllie of New Zealand.

Ian McGeechan said: “This may alter the game fundamentally.” The maestro Bob Dwyer of Australia said: “It is a nightmare from which everyone will soon wake up.”

The nightmare has lasted every year of the 28. The measure was repealed as it applied to the ruck and yet has been retained to this day for the maul. How could this bring about the recent disasters? Until 1992, rugby was played with forwards up front heavily engaged at rucks and mauls. They all had to be on the spot to drive them, to get the scrum if they could not clear the ball.

But suddenly, post-IRB travesty, forwards did not need to attend to all rucks and mauls. All it needed was a couple on the scene. Overnight the whole shape of the action changed. The two teams spread out in line right across the field with backs and forwards engaged in holy disunion. “Suddenly, all the fat boys were out there,” said the great David Campese.

The two teams are still out there and the only way the defence can be drawn in is if there are an almost endless succession of mini-rucks, laboriously making inches. The jackals are waiting at every point to try to seize the turnover and space, which was once gained so freely, is now at a premium. The suffocation is why teams hoof the ball up in the air.

You also have to factor in the aerobic fitness and power of the modern player. 16 stone used to be a gorilla, but now 16 stone is nothing more than a marmoset. Rugby is now a barrage of mini-rucks in which the first men on the scene from each side crouch and drive in rapidly, head down, to try to get there before the opposition. Statistics show that the vast number of concussions are caused in the tackle area and that really is no surprise.

But now, after the Jeff Astle case in football, we also know about sub-concussive hits. Not every scientist agrees but those medical experts powering the court case involving Thompson and his fellow sufferers say it is possible to suffer serious harm with a succession of relatively minor hits, which neither knock you out nor even cause you to notice them.

Some of these cases soon to be up before the courts have, according to the scientists and the lawyers, been caused by the accumulation of these unregarded hits. Popham has suffered in this way. His specialist examined his career: “They reckon I have had over 100,000 sub-concussions,” said Popham. One of his neurologists says: “Every contact causes a little bit of damage to your brain.”

And the potential for concussive or sub-concussive hits still appears enormous. England made 236 tackles when they played Ireland recently and the total number of tackles and therefore breakdown collisions in a match could easily amount to 350.

This newspaper was always implacably against the violation represented by those 1992 bunglers. Our heading that week was “Law farce helps cheats prosper and wimps win.” But the farce was also the first step in a ghastly causal chain which has damaged young men.

[coddy]

I can't warm to Stephen Jones, he comes across as a bit shouty and self opinionated without offering solutions.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

The implied solution is to reverse the law change. Whether that would work is left to the imagination and discussion in places like this.

[wasps]

But does he himself not say that the law was reversed for the ruck.
Its only at mauls where this issue still exists

Mauls tend to drag all forwards in anyway, otherwise the team in possession will just roll down the pitch.


I've either missed something fundamental in the article or have a gross misunderstanding of the breakdown laws - or both

[mike909]

But does he himself not say that the law was reversed for the ruck.
Its only at mauls where this issue still exists

Mauls tend to drag all forwards in anyway, otherwise the team in possession will just roll down the pitch.


I've either missed something fundamental in the article or have a gross misunderstanding of the breakdown laws - or both

You can count me in on that too.....

[westwaleswasp]

It seems like a key omission, and a deliberate  one, as it undermines his argument.
I don't think it was specifically these law changes, it was the size and fitness levels, as in the second part of the argument.