Player welfare is more than concussion alone

During the week Sir Bill Beaumont, chairman of World Rugby, issued an open letter in response to the ongoing debate about the affect of repeated concussions, and in it he outlined the various steps made by his organisation to try to make the game safer.

- COLIN BOAG

I don’t doubt his sincerity in any way, but a number of people would want to take issue with his claim that player welfare is, and always has been, World Rugby’s top priority.

The problem with ‘player welfare’ as a term is that it is bandied about so much that no one any longer really knows what it means. It has become a phrase that is obligatory in everything said and written by the game’s administrators, and it’s almost as if, once they’ve got it out of the way, they’ve ticked a box and can turn to the substance of what they want to say.

Inevitably the focus at present is on those retired players who are displaying symptoms of dementia, whether that can be attributed to their rugby careers, and if it can, whether anyone is culpable. That’s one for the lawyers to sort out, but player welfare goes far beyond that.