Springbok Test centurion and 2007 World Cup-winning captain John Smit nailed it when he said rugby would never be safe and he doesn’t know of any professional player who has been forced to partake in the sport.
Smit played 111 Tests for the Springboks and captained the team to 46 wins in 64 of them, a winning percentage of 72%.
In a round-table media conversation, he said he played rugby of his own free will and understood the nature and risk of a contact sport from the day he picked up an oval ball and wanted to run with it.
Smit welcomed precautionary measures on head knocks and a limit on the game time of a player throughout a season, but cautioned against destroying the DNA of rugby by refusing to accept it is a contact sport.
“It doesn’t matter how many studies you do or facts you get, I don’t think a contact sport can be 100% safe. My body is falling to pieces. My shoulders and knees are a mess. I can only turn so far because of my fused neck. But if you gave me that choice to go back 20 or 30 years, I would still pick up that ball and carry on playing.”
Smit, a keen mountain biker who has completed the demanding Cape Epic, added that he had picked up more injuries on a bicycle than a rugby field.
I have long bemoaned the hysteria around rugby bosses wanting to make the sport something it simply cannot be — safe.
Players who pursue rugby as a career and get paid millions a year to do so know the risk. If they wanted a career in touch rugby, that is what they should have chosen.
The professional game is a mess regarding what constitutes unsafe play because it comes down to match officials’ interpretation. They even double as medical experts in their analysis of what constitutes force in a collision. It is madness.
The referee’s primary job should be to apply the laws, but with so much down to interpretation and contradictory views on this, no two referees seem to see the same thing.
The biggest joke is match officials ruling on whether a player was hurt in a collision, as that determines their decision-making. When did these officials become qualified in the medical consequence of a blow to the head, hip or face?
Rugby is brutal, yet it is this that makes it beautiful for those of us who love the game.
You cannot sanitise it without destroying its DNA.
Smoking has the potential to kill you and every person who buys a packet of cigarettes is forewarned of the dangers. Whoever indulges in that cigarette does so out of choice and with that choice comes consequence.
Ditto the collision sport of rugby.
Red-card sanctions for head collisions are overkill. Players are coached to make big hits and in that immediate collision, with one player dipping and the other in an elevated position, shoulders will clash with heads and heads will clash with heads.
Intent is the only applicable measurement and malicious intent makes up one tackle in 100.
Every player knows what physical damage can be done and if rugby wants to eradicate the danger of the collision, then change everything about the sport and don’t allow contact.
Just don’t call it rugby.
- Mark Keohane is the founder of keo.co.za, a multiple award-winning sports writer and the digital content director at Highbury Media. Twitter: @mark_keohane
Keo Uncut
MARK KEOHANE | You cannot sanitise rugby without destroying its DNA
The game, like any contact sport, will never be 100% safe.
Image: 123RF/Wavebreak Media Ltd
Springbok Test centurion and 2007 World Cup-winning captain John Smit nailed it when he said rugby would never be safe and he doesn’t know of any professional player who has been forced to partake in the sport.
Smit played 111 Tests for the Springboks and captained the team to 46 wins in 64 of them, a winning percentage of 72%.
In a round-table media conversation, he said he played rugby of his own free will and understood the nature and risk of a contact sport from the day he picked up an oval ball and wanted to run with it.
Smit welcomed precautionary measures on head knocks and a limit on the game time of a player throughout a season, but cautioned against destroying the DNA of rugby by refusing to accept it is a contact sport.
“It doesn’t matter how many studies you do or facts you get, I don’t think a contact sport can be 100% safe. My body is falling to pieces. My shoulders and knees are a mess. I can only turn so far because of my fused neck. But if you gave me that choice to go back 20 or 30 years, I would still pick up that ball and carry on playing.”
Smit, a keen mountain biker who has completed the demanding Cape Epic, added that he had picked up more injuries on a bicycle than a rugby field.
I have long bemoaned the hysteria around rugby bosses wanting to make the sport something it simply cannot be — safe.
Players who pursue rugby as a career and get paid millions a year to do so know the risk. If they wanted a career in touch rugby, that is what they should have chosen.
The professional game is a mess regarding what constitutes unsafe play because it comes down to match officials’ interpretation. They even double as medical experts in their analysis of what constitutes force in a collision. It is madness.
The referee’s primary job should be to apply the laws, but with so much down to interpretation and contradictory views on this, no two referees seem to see the same thing.
The biggest joke is match officials ruling on whether a player was hurt in a collision, as that determines their decision-making. When did these officials become qualified in the medical consequence of a blow to the head, hip or face?
Rugby is brutal, yet it is this that makes it beautiful for those of us who love the game.
You cannot sanitise it without destroying its DNA.
Smoking has the potential to kill you and every person who buys a packet of cigarettes is forewarned of the dangers. Whoever indulges in that cigarette does so out of choice and with that choice comes consequence.
Ditto the collision sport of rugby.
Red-card sanctions for head collisions are overkill. Players are coached to make big hits and in that immediate collision, with one player dipping and the other in an elevated position, shoulders will clash with heads and heads will clash with heads.
Intent is the only applicable measurement and malicious intent makes up one tackle in 100.
Every player knows what physical damage can be done and if rugby wants to eradicate the danger of the collision, then change everything about the sport and don’t allow contact.
Just don’t call it rugby.
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