JERSEY has long been a rugby-loving island with hundreds of players young and old taking to the pitch every week. But, the dangers of taking part in such a high-impact sport are becoming more apparent. Jodie Yettram reports.
JERSEY has a rich and proud heritage when it comes to rugby.
For years, the Island’s only professional sports team was the Jersey Reds, until it folded in 2023, while Jersey RFC have been steadily climbing the leagues of the English system.
And every week, there are an impressive number of youngsters playing rugby with Jersey RFC’s minis section having more than 500 members.
However, the sport has had something of a reckoning in recent years as medical science improves.
More than 1,000 ex-players are part of a major concussion lawsuit against the sport’s governing body, while three high-profile former professionals have had public battles with motor neurone disease.
With such a large and tightknit rugby community in Jersey, does the Island have the right support in place for its former players.
Rugby players and coaches have said the sport must keep looking into its long-term impact on brain health, after former England rugby league star Kevin Sinfield – who since retiring has become a high-profile fundraiser for MND charities – visited the Island this week to support those living with the degenerative disease.
While members of Jersey’s rugby community say awareness of head injuries has improved dramatically in recent years, some believe more needs to be done nationally to support players once their careers end.
The chair of the Motor Neurone Disease Association Jersey, Don Connolly, said forming a dedicated support group locally would be unrealistic, as there are only around 14 people on the Island living with the illness.
He added that the Association’s priority was to support every person diagnosed with the disease, regardless of background, and that the support was there for anyone who needed it.
The discussion came after Lewis Moody, a World Cup-winning former England international, announced last week that he has been diagnosed with MND.
Moody, who has campaigned for limits on full-contact training and better support for players after retirement, is the latest high-profile figure from the sport to be affected by the terminal illness.
His diagnosis follows the deaths of former Scotland and Lions forward Doddie Weir, England rugby league player Rob Burrow and South Africa scrum-half Joost van der Westhuizen – all from the same condition within the past decade.
It comes as rugby star Kevin Sinfield – a former teammate of Burrow and now a leading rugby union coach – visited the Island today as part of his ongoing campaign to raise money for MND charities.
Sinfield led a community fun run at the Waterfront followed by a charity dinner at Jersey Rugby Club. He has raised more than £10 million over the last five years to support those impacted by MND.
MND affects the nerves that send messages from the brain to the muscles, causing them to weaken and stiffen over time. This leads to increasing difficulties with movement, speech, swallowing and breathing.
According to the MND Association, the disease kills around a third of people within a year of diagnosis and more than half within two years. The exact cause is still unknown, but scientists believe a combination of genetic and environmental factors play a role.
Elite athletes also appear disproportionately affected by MND, with scientists believing that frequent, strenuous exercise and repeated head impacts could trigger the disease in those already genetically susceptible.
Research in Italy found professional footballers are up to six times more likely to develop MND than the general population.
Meanwhile, a 2022 study by the University of Glasgow, which examined 400 former Scotland rugby internationals, found they were more than twice as likely to develop a neurodegenerative condition, and 15 times more likely to be diagnosed with MND, than the general population.
Further studies by Durham University found retired players who have suffered multiple concussions have biological differences that may make them more prone to developing MND, while separate research from Sheffield University suggested a link between extreme exercise and an increased risk of developing the condition.
Scott van Breda, a current player and coach for Jersey RFC, said the sport had changed “massively” when it came to safety.
“It’s always going to be physical – there are knocks and things like that – but I can’t tell you enough how much has progressed in terms of player safety”, he said.
“Understanding of the long-term risks of head injuries now is far greater than when I started playing. It wasn’t really spoken about [then].
“Back in the day, there was no real policing of how much contact you had in a week. You’d be doing some contact on a Monday, you’d be bashing each other on a Tuesday, you’d be doing some contact on a Thursday, and you’d play games on Saturday.
“It was just a normal thing. People wouldn’t even think about questioning it in a sport like rugby. And, if you complained, you’d be thought of as soft, which obviously is super backwards, but back then that was just normal.”
Van Breda went on to discuss how “the culture around concussion has now completely changed” at every level of the game.
“I’ve got a little boy who’s just started at minis and juniors. It’s all about play, running around and having fun. When I was six or seven, it was straight into tackling and running as hard as you could.”
At a professional level, he said teams are now using high-tech mouthguards that record the frequency and magnitude of head contacts – and that the game has moved away from the old ‘tough it out’ approach.
“If you hit a certain threshold, you have to come off the field,” he said.
“When I was 21, I’d get a knock to the head and think, ‘It’s just a headache, I’ll be fine’. Whereas now, think, there’s not really any point. So on that side of things, it is so much better.”
He said rugby’s approach had evolved in part because of lessons learned from American football, where studies into chronic traumatic encephalopathy – a degenerative brain disease – revealed the long-term effects of repeated head knocks.
When asked what more could be done, he said regular brain-health screening could be introduced in rugby, both for active and retired players.
“We get every other test under the sun now – ECGs, bloods, physio screenings – so I think [brain health] is probably the natural next step. It wouldn’t only help the players themselves, but it would also help research.
“The studies are still new – most have come since 2015 – so who knows how much damage was done in the past through the crazy regimes and the crazy amounts of contact guys were doing,” he said.
Nick Campbell, a former Jersey Reds and Glasgow Warriors player who went on to become a professional boxer, agreed that attitudes towards concussion had changed “completely” over the past decade.
“It’s not really been discussed until about the last five years,” he said. “The last few years have been massive, especially the changes in the laws of the game and how severely punished for high tackles or head contact within the game.”
“The changes in the laws of the game and how severely punished you are for high tackles or any kind of head contact have made a big difference.”
He said players now had a clearer understanding of the risks.
“Anybody playing the game now realises how dangerous it can be and what the potential consequences are,” he said.
Campbell, who joined the Jersey MND Association for an ice-bucket challenge fundraiser earlier this year, said he believed rugby was “moving in the right direction” but called for more support for players once they retire.
“It’s not something that I’ve ever been fully aware of, but there’s probably an argument for a little more support,” he said. “It’s going in the right direction, but hopefully governing bodies and people in power will continue to make it better for anyone who does suffer lasting issues.”
Jersey MND Association Chair Mr Connolly said: “At the moment, we’re helping 11 people in the Island, and there are about 14 in total living with MND, and they really are a wide demographic of ages, sex and backgrounds”, he said.
“So I think it’d be very difficult to put something like that on the Island in terms of help for a particular type of career,” he added. “Our efforts would be better focused just on helping people as they get diagnosed, no matter where they’ve come from.
“There does seem to be a very small correlation [between playing rugby and the condition], but in the main, MND is a lightning bolt,” he said.
“There’s no particular factor that would say that you will get the disease. So it’s people of all ages, from all walks of life, with all backgrounds who may get it.”
Fact box: Rugby’s head contact and concussion rules explained
- Rugby has introduced a number of safety measures in recent years to reduce the risk of serious head injuries and protect players at every level of the game.
- Referees must now check any incident that involves contact with a player’s head or neck. Depending on how serious the contact is, this can lead to penalties or a red card.
- World Rugby has also been trialling a rule that limits tackles to waist height or below. The idea is to lower the point of contact and reduce the chances of head-on-head collisions.
- If a player is diagnosed with a concussion, they cannot return to playing straight away. In community rugby, players must wait at least 21 days before competing again. Professional players follow a step-by-step medical clearance process, which allows them to return only once doctors are satisfied they have fully recovered.
- At elite level, players who take a heavy knock to the head are given a Head Injury Assessment to check for signs of concussion during and after the game.
- Some professional teams are also trialling “smart” mouthguards that measure the force of impacts during matches and training. The data helps medical staff understand how hard players have been hit and when they might need to rest.
- All coaches and referees must now complete the Rugby Football Union’s online concussion-awareness course, which teaches them how to recognise and respond to potential head injuries.
- In addition, professional clubs have been told to reduce the amount of full-contact training they do each week. The aim is to limit repeated blows to the head during practice, as well as during matches.
