George North has opened up on living with online abuse after seeing his Wales captain trolled by rugby’s keyboard warriors.
North should have been running out behind Alun Wyn Jones today on the occasion of the skipper’s world record-equalling 148th cap.
Instead Wales’ Six Nations clash with Scotland was called off 24 hours before kick-off with many Scots having already made the trip to Cardiff.
The late decision capped a frustrating end to a difficult week for Jones, who had hoped to move on from last Saturday’s defeat at Twickenham and the furore over Joe Marler grabbing his genitals.
When the England prop was handed a 10-week ban on Thursday elements on social media went for Jones for having dared to say he “hoped” World Rugby would look at the incident.
“Social media can be a nightmare,” said North. “It’s great to be so accessible to fans and to see camaraderie online is brilliant. But the flip side is hard.
“Al wasn’t pointing fingers and I don’t understand why he is getting the abuse he is. If you look at the situation he was put in, I thought he dealt with it extremely well.
“The (abuse) wears down on you. He’s got a young family and he doesn’t need that when he goes home, to be constantly reminded about that. When really he didn’t do anything wrong. He just stood there and had his peeper honked.”
North says people thinking it’s okay to say “whatever they want”, often linked to his history of concussions, is something he has to deal with on a “daily” basis.
“Even walking round Tescos I get told I should retire,” he said. “People comment (online) without ever seeing me, treating me, knowing my symptoms, my history.
“To have that constantly on you all the time, it’s hard. It’s the effect it has on your family as well. It’s mad, what it does - and people think it’s fine.
“They (trolls) haven’t got a Scooby Doo about what we do Monday to Friday. They only see that game on a Saturday where they think they could have done better ‘if they hadn’t blown their knee out when they were 12’.
“If they were to come into the environment, see the prep we are doing, the lengths we go to, not just physically but mentally, I would hope they would think differently about what they say and do.”
Citing the tragic example of Caroline Flack, North continued: “Hopefully no-one else has to go through that again but, as we go forward, it is understanding what the effect can be on individuals, especially when it is all the time.
“You go through stages where you’ve got to just let it go and you log out, get away from it, move on and go about your business.
“You put yourself in the shop window, you expect to have some of it, but when it’s unjust or without any real knowledge or information behind it, it does drain hard.”
