Hard knocks

Searing honesty is a mark of ex-All Black Carl Hayman's bleak story of a superstar whose life has gone tragically wrong.

- PAUL THOMAS

HEAD ON: Rugby, Dementia and the Hidden Cost of Success, by Carl Hayman (HarperCollins, $39.99) 

Part-way through his 13-year stint as All Blacks team doctor, John Mayhew gave up reading players' autobiographies because "so much of what's in them is patently untrue".

I seriously doubt he'd have that problem with former All-Black Carl Hayman's memoir. You want the truth and nothing but? How about brain damage, alcoholism, rehab, relapse, spousal abuse resulting in a suspended jail sentence, marriage break-up, mental breakdown, suicidal impulses?

Head On is a bleak, unsparing rise-and-fall story of a superstar whose life has gone tragically wrong - from being one of the game's highest-paid players, widely regarded as the best tighthead prop in the business, to an emotionally broken, fearful man who forgets his son's name and can find himself driving on a road to nowhere, his destination and purpose lost in impenetrable brain fog.

Hayman has early-onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease. He's one of almost 400 athletes, mainly ex-rugby players, engaged in a lawsuit asserting that the sporting authorities "were negligent in failing to take reasonable action in order to prevent players from permanent injury caused by repetitive concussive and sub-concussive blows". Another high-profile litigant is former England hooker Steve Thompson, who has no recollection of winning the 2003 World Cup.