Rugby Brain Injuries
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Had to bin the boots back in ‘96 aged 30 due to blown left knee and my bell being rung every couple of matches.
Small sample size and anecdotal but when I walk around my home town, in my peer group of 50-60 year olds there doesn’t seem to be more wear & tear and premature brain deterioration compared with the boys who played other sports, predominantly football.
Compared with the boys who did no organised sport post-school we’re in far better shape, even the props.
I come from an area where most people have their first kid between 20-25 and by the time they get to 55-60 they’ll be grandparents to 5-15 year old children.
What’s really worrying is the children of parents who did no post-school sport are obese and already on the Diabetes Express.
To me, that long term cost far outweighs the ‘barbarity’ and subsequent later life injury of rugby.
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@mikethesnow said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
To me, that long term cost far outweighs the ‘barbarity’ and subsequent later life injury of rugby.
That’s exactly why I play and not for the beers afterwards 😂
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I have never had a concussion.
Played from age 5 to 21. Then a few occasional season at age 24 and 28.
But, they had rucking for all that time, not collisions.
Except when I was 28. I had to learn what 'jackalling' rules were when I played that season. Hands in the ruck? what you doing you moron, jeezus H christ - my 8 year old self would have said to my 28 year old self.
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So World Rugby have released new guidelines for pro rugby teams, suggesting the following limits on training:
- 15 minutes of full-contact training per week
- 40 minutes of controlled contact training per week
- 30 minutes of live set-piece training per week
More info here: https://www.the42.ie/world-rugby-contact-guidelines-5555799-Sep2021/?utm_source=shortlink
Hard to see how professional teams can maintain any level of play with those limits. My old 4th grade suburban side practised more than that.
I am all for the preservation of our players' bodies and minds, but surely this will impact the overall quality of the game. Will just mean endless unopposed skill drills and time in the gym. So we will have beefcake players with terrible technique at the ruck.
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you cannot remove the risk of brain injuries in rugby players.
If that is your goal, call the game off. Just cancel it. Because all this death by a thousand cuts shit is actually worse.
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Paywalled, but https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/elite-game-is-not-safe-researchers-shocking-issue-with-world-rugby/Q5ATGSVWFJ5HK63QC3DARJS4R4/
The British foundation behind research into rugby's cumulative impacts on the brain says the elite game is unsafe, and in an ominous warning accuses World Rugby of marking its own homework.
The Drake Foundation, which funded a study conducted by the Imperial College London that found half of elite adult rugby players showed a reduction in brain volume and almost a quarter displayed abnormalities in brain structure, believes World Rugby has not done enough in tackling head impacts.
"The elite game is not safe at the moment and that disturbs me," Drake Foundation founder James Drake told the Herald this week. "I don't have any reservations in saying that. The body of information across contact sport is a worrying picture. There is a problem here."
Drake has been on a crusade since establishing the foundation in 2014, investing more than $4 million into the long and short term effects of contact sport's impacts on brain heath.
The results of the latest study in July, published in the journal Brain Communications, found concerning links between elite rugby and changes in brain structure.
The study involved 44 rugby players - from seven unnamed professional union and league clubs in the UK - who had suffered mild injuries. It found 23 per cent of participants experienced changes to their brain structure in the neuronal white matter and blood vessels of the brain, while 50 per cent showed a reduction in brain volume.
The average age of participants was 25.
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@machpants said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
Drake has been on a crusade
Reading the summary of the results is interesting - but that particular quote is a bit concerning.
It sounds like this guy has a particular axe to grind, and would be quite willing to publish results slanted towards what he wants to show.
I'm in a job at the moment where I'm doing exactly the same thing... gathering shitloads of data... but then realising you can just put the spotlight on certain bits, or create certain graphs - to "paint the picture" that you want to.Anyway - I think any research into this stuff is always going to show... yeah, contact sports... not so good for the body or brain. An impartial study, if that were ever possible, would be super interesting reading... but trying to guess what the reality is- somewhere between World Rugby's obviously partial "studies", and this guy Drake's studies...
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@mariner4life said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
you cannot remove the risk of brain injuries in rugby players.
If that is your goal, call the game off. Just cancel it. Because all this death by a thousand cuts shit is actually worse.
You're right.
I wanted to write some ideas here but all of my suggestions will just make the game more like league, except perhaps not allow hands over the tackled player as soon as another player joins the action. And, I mean, right away.
Essentially remove jackeling from the game.
All of my (few) head-knocks in my very low-grade playing experience came from being over the ball while waiting for the bodies to pile in. I still marvel at the bravery of some of the little guys who constantly put themselves in that position. Fuck that.
For me, the game could be improved if turnovers could only be won by driving over the ball. If someone gets a boot or two, well too bad.
That won't happen though.
The game is pretty fucked in the toll it takes but equally life is life.
I was playing touch rugby the day I had my stroke and it may even be that the the one fall I had that day (just ran into another player and we both went down) actually caused it. Funnily enough, on that day, I got asked to play club rugby for them (as most were from the same club) and I said 'no, fuck that, I might do something serious and be really fucked up'.
Seven years later and I still get MRIs twice a year.
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Video probably won't work outside the UK. Ex-England scrum half and BBC commentator Nigel Starmer-Smith is in a bad way with dementia:.
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Another player with early onset dementia
Former Wales rugby captain Ryan Jones diagnosed with dementia at 41
Jones has opened up on his condition in an emotional newspaper interview
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@antipodean I don't really get what's so stand out about the quote - what am I missing? I was hoping not to have to get tested too.
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@KiwiMurph said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
@Bones Andy Powell is basically threatening Gareth Anscombe's wife. Not cool.
Oh sure, but why did she put that quote up? What's significant about it? Has he got 3 kids or something?
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@Bones Comes from a reply to Andy Powell's dipshit original post in response to Ryan Jones:
tl:dr Powell is an angry little fucktard who threatens women for pointing out he's a fucktard.
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@antipodean said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
@Bones Comes from a reply to Andy Powell's dipshit original post in response to Ryan Jones:
tl:dr Powell is an angry little fucktard who threatens women for pointing out he's a fucktard.
I remember Powell coming across as a brainless fuckwit on the pitch, glad to see he appears to be the same off it as well
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Andy Powell is being a 5 star dick. This was his initial response to Ryan Jones' news:
Unsurprisingly, loads of people have told him that he's out of order, and his response is always let's meet up face to face and see if you've got the chops then.
He's since given a bullshit sorry-not-sorry "anyone who knows me" apology.
Awful news about Ryan Jones though. He's widely regarded as one of the nicest blokes in rugby. Only 41, 6 kids, desperately sad.
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@MN5 said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
I remember Powell coming across as a brainless fuckwit on the pitch, glad to see he appears to be the same off it as well
Exhibit B: the time he got smashed after a Wales match, stole a golf buggy from the team hotel at 5.30am and drove it onto the motorway in search of a kebab
On This Day: Wales' Andy Powell drives golf buggy down M4
Andy Powell was thrown out of Wales’ Six Nations squad on this day in 2010 after driving a golf buggy on the M4 motorway.
