It’s well past time a long-term plan was made for players who have suffered for their sport, writes Scotty Stevenson.
I guess this is the moment, then. I hope so, anyway. It would have been good to think that moment arrived a long time ago.
Before Billy Guyton died. Before Shane Christie died too. Two good men. Two dead men.
This is the moment we as fans of the game stop allowing the denialists to run the cutter. Head knocks and concussions and CTE are all real, and while the science may be complex, the facts are not.
We know there are going to be men who play this game professionally who are going to develop issues after their playing days are over. And there needs to be a plan in place to help them chart that course.
There is no way to legislate sub-concussive hits out of the game. Rugby is a contact sport that exposes its participants to a range of dynamic forces. We see the big collisions, but we are often oblivious to the thousands of smaller ones that may be contributing factors to the risk of long-term cognitive illnesses.
We see the Head Injury Assessment calls in the big games when the cameras are rolling but what happens beyond the glare of the television lens? How many times are bells being rung on the training field? In warm up matches? In club and school games across the country?
There have been advancements in the care of players but so many of them at a time like this feel cosmetic at best - just enough to convince the crowd that we are genuinely concerned for them, but no more than that, and certainly no move to proactively accept and to advertise what can no longer be soft sold to an unsuspecting player and fan base.
It’s time to stop spending time and resources on PR solutions and redirect that investment into a plan that provides reassurance to those men who put their body on the line for a sport, only to find that sport deserts them when they are surplus to requirements.
Shane had a lot of love in his life, but he needed more than that.
He needed to feel like his sport was listening, that the medical system was listening, that along with that love from his friends and former team mates, and many from both within and without the rugby community, he also had someone at a higher level who was prepared to listen, and prepared to help.
As Tony Lewis, former chief executive of Tasman Rugby told me today, “Shane could be hard to listen to sometimes, but if you did you would find the gems".
There is an image that I stared at yesterday, during what was a heavy, heavy day for many mates who were much closer to Shane than I was, and for many of my journalistic heroes – David Fisher, Mark Crysell and Dylan Cleaver in particular, who have led the way in the investigation and reportage of concussion in sport.
It is a photograph taken by Evan Barnes of Shane standing beside Billy Guyton’s casket at his funeral service in Nelson two years ago. On top of the casket is a photo of a smiling Billy. Shane is wearing his Mako blazer, and with microphone in hand is addressing the crowd. That photograph was powerful at the time, now it feels essential, capturing as it does two good men who couldn’t rediscover the light.
As a player, Shane Christie was a captain, a leader. In life he wanted to be a leader in fighting for more transparency on rugby, head knocks, concussions, and care. In death, I hope that work is taken up by others, and that we can all get to a point where the lives of Billy, Shane, and others have not been lost in vain.
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