There are an unusual number of fine rugby books around at the moment, all hoping to tap into the extra interest surrounding the World Cup. I cannot wait, for example, to read Michael Lynagh’s Blindsided (HarperCollins, £20), the story of the former Australian fly-half’s life-threatening stroke and, happily, his subsequent recovery. If it is half as nourishing for the soul as Lynagh was during his playing days it will be a treat.
The current book on my bedside table, though, will take some beating. No Borders (Arena Sport, £19.99) is a history of post-war Irish rugby, told in the players’ own words and curated, if that is the right verb, by the ever-excellent Tom English. From Jackie Kyle to Moss Keane and Willie Duggan to Brian O’Driscoll it ploughs some of the most fertile anecdotal soil imaginable. It is almost worth the cover price on its own to read Keane’s glorious description of Willie John McBride’s impassioned team-talk at Twickenham in 1974, coincidentally the first Test match I ever watched live. “Willie John went ballistic in the dressing-room,” recalled Keane. “He blamed England for everything from Eve’s seduction of Adam to the disappearance of the dodo and had us champing at the bit.”
All the other stuff you have ever wondered about is in there too: first-person accounts of Ireland’s 1948 grand slam, the sectarian undercurrent of the 70s, the fly-half rivalry between Ollie Campbell and Tony Ward, Mick Doyle’s coaching style, the Brian Ashton experiment, the Warren Gatland/Eddie O’Sullivan relationship. At this precise moment in the game’s history, though, a couple of sentences specifically resonate.
One is Moss Finn’s breezy testimony from the 1982 game against Wales: “I scored two tries but I can’t remember them. I finished the match, was taken away to Vincent’s hospital and spent the night there. The highlights came on the television in the room. I sat there watching myself score two tries I had no memory of scoring.”
The other comes from Gerry McLoughlin, that most evocative of ginger-haired prop forwards. In 1978 he was an uncapped sub on the bench against Scotland and was told by both the team doctor and the coach, Noel Murphy, to get himself on the field pronto in place of the injured Duggan.
There was only one problem: the Irish captain would not leave. “I’ll break your fucking neck if you come on,” muttered Duggan. McLoughlin duly stayed off.
Different times etc. Or perhaps not. There are plenty of players who will tell you that the words of Finn and McLoughlin – and McBride, for that matter – are not totally outdated. This is still a sport in which concern for personal safety comes significantly further down the list than not letting the team down, pushing on through the pain barrier and reflecting on any consequences at a later date.
That was pretty much the message from the Moseley players interviewed on this week’s BBC Panorama programme on concussion. While medics and academics fret about the potential brain repercussions of repeated head knocks, the first instinct of those in the front line will always be to play on. What comes across more powerfully by the day is the responsibility on coaches – and, at youth level, teachers and referees – to save players from themselves. “If in doubt, sit them out” should be a mantra painted on every dressing-room wall.
John Beattie, the former Scotland No8 who hosted the Panorama film, did a good job of teeing up the experts and concussion awareness campaigners, not least Dr Willie Stewart and Peter Robinson, whose 14-year-old son Ben died in 2011 as a result of “second shock syndrome” having remained on the field after an initial head knock. By offering to donate his own brain for medical research purposes following his death, Beattie also went way beyond the normal remit of most TV reporters. Dr Stewart’s memorably dry response that he would find “a small corner where we can store it” was among the subtler put-downs aired on the BBC this year.
Much more research, as everyone conceded, is still required. There continues to be an awful lot we do not know. Then again, as Beattie emphasised, rugby union cannot simply stick its bruised and battered head in the sand. Just as motor racing had to change to protect its drivers and American football has had to adjust its tackling laws, so rugby may be required to do the same.
In that regard I had an interesting message from a friend, something of a rugby agnostic, following Japan’s extraordinary weekend win over South Africa. He was wondering why, in the pictures following one of the most odds-defying days sport has seen, there was barely a visible scratch or a bruise on any of the Japanese team members?
It was a fair point; I could recall only one Japanese blood injury during the course of a monumental contest against one of the biggest, most traditionally physical teams in the world. Sometimes, of course, it takes a while for bruises to appear and adrenaline to dissipate; the abrasiveness of the surface can also be a factor. It seems more than possible, however, that the chop-tackling technique of the Japanese: text-book low with heads almost always to the side was at least a partial factor.
Latterly, as we all know, rugby union has become a far more upright game; the outlawing of old-style rucking has been among the primary reasons. Would it help, say, if it became illegal to tackle any ball-carrier above the midriff? Or, more radically, if players were required to wear knee padding? All too often it is accidental knees to the temple that cause players to crumple. The last resort would be to reduce the number of players on the field by two per side, forcing everyone to do more running and theoretically creating more space and less close-range head-banging.
None of this will appeal to traditionalists; some of the wonderful Irish greats of yesteryear would scarcely recognise today’s game as it is.
But as we wallow in this eventful World Cup, which is already showing signs of true greatness, it is important to maintain some perspective. The commitment of modern rugby’s leading players is inspiring but they also need saving from themselves.
