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Touchline • Issue 16 • 11
The rugby player was aged in his fifties and had early onset
dementia. He had a number of abnormal proteins in a section
of his brain which was comparable to a young man who had
suffered a “moderate to severe” head injury in an assault.
Stewart did say that the percentage of rugby players affected
was likely to be far lower than in sports such as boxing,
American football and ice hockey, where competitors are more
likely to suffer repeated head trauma and concussions.
But he told BBC Radio Scotland’s Sport Nation programme:
“I think on current evidence coming from American studies,
from looking at American football, and our historical evidence
looking at boxers throughout the world, it would be foolish to
think there will be no problem and that rugby is immune from
brain damage.”
“What the numbers are, what proportion of people who play
rugby, how often you may have to get concussed, how long
after you may develop problems, these are questions we can’t
answer.”
“We would suspect it would be a fairly low number, but not
zero. Let’s say it is 1 per cent of people who are playing
rugby at international level may go on to develop long-term
problems.”
“In any Six Nations weekend that is one or two
players who may go on and develop a dementia they wouldn’t
otherwise have been exposed to. That is a realistic number.”
His findings come at a time when increasing concern is being
expressed about the severity and force of the collisions which
characterise the modern professional game.
The former Scotland internationalist Rory Lamont recently
claimed that players were “cheating” concussion protocols and
insisted many well-known figures are knowingly taking the
field with head injuries.
The 30-year-old retired last month after a succession of
injuries, undergoing 16 operations and suffering “at least six
or seven clean knock-outs” in games, and many more what he
terms “minor concussions”.
One of his injuries saw him carried off the Murrayfield pitch
with a facial injury after clashing with England’s Iain Balshaw
in the 2008 Calcutta Cup match, which Scotland won narrowly
15-9.
A spokesman for the Scottish Rugby Union said: “Scottish
Rugby believes player safety is of paramount importance. It
is a great game for all people and we are always looking at
ways of making it safer.
“We welcome this report and we would be happy to pass it on
to the International Rugby Board, and if it were to help their
thinking on player safety that can only be a positive thing.”
© THOMAS FAIVRE-DUBOZ