Kearnan Myall’s stark account this week of the loneliness of the modern-day rugby player showed a disconnect at the top of the game touched on recently by Jamie Cudmore, the former Clermont Auvergne second-row who is taking the club to court for allegedly failing to protect him from serious injury in 2015 after a series of concussions.
Myall, who experienced depression as the speed of the sport’s treadmill regularly increased, pointed out that many of the coaches at club and country level were products of a different generation when the game was amateur or not long beyond it.
“A lot of the guys in charge have come from the amateur days when it was a release to come to training and bash a few heads together two or three times a week,” he said. “It’s a case of: ‘You need to toughen up, get your head down, work hard.’ You’d expect that as players get paid more, they’d get looked after better, but from what I’ve seen they’re becoming more disposable.”
Cudmore advanced his case against Clermont this year when a court-appointed neurologist ruled that the club were responsible for the harm the Canadian suffered after playing on with a concussion in the Champions Cup final against Toulon at Twickenham in 2015 – a couple of weeks after a blow to the head taking on Billy Vunipola against Saracens.
“The game has progressed so fast but the people who run it are 50-70 years old and they’re all still in the dark ages,” Cudmore said. “I have stood up for myself and others who do not need to go through this.”
The outcome of Cudmore’s case could have profound implications for a sport that has, unsurprisingly, struggled to deal with the fast pace of change over the past 10 years. More of Cudmore’s generation are on the coaching ladder although administration is largely the preserve of the older, which is why players’ associations should play a more central role in decision-making. Players who in June started preparing for the World Cup in training camps that have been described as brutal will still be playing 12 months on in England.
That decision by Premiership Rugby, no matter what clothes they dressed it up in, remains one of the most irresponsible of the decade. The longer the season, the more money will be generated to pay players, so it goes. It may be needed to fund class actions in the years ahead if a variety of concussion symptoms, including depression, present themselves in players who then sue for negligence.
Wales are spending this week in Turkey, training in high temperatures to prepare for Japan. Ireland, who visit Twickenham on Saturday, are in Portugal doing likewise. World Rugby, in fairness to the emerging nations who do not have the resources to lavish on camps abroad, should consider limiting the time teams are allowed to be together before a World Cup.
The tournament has come to dominate the international game. Count how many times the words world and cup will be uttered in the build-up to the next Six Nations, even though it will be nigh on four years away.
Small wonder Myall said: “There are several England players I know who dread going into camp. They don’t want to go there. It’s a combination of pressure, scrutiny, what’s going to be said and what they’re going to be made to do within the confines of the camp. What is the longevity of those sort of tactics?”
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