Retired Ireland and Leinster hooker Bernard Jackman has revisited his final season as a player, which featured 24 concussions and a retirement row with Michael Cheika.<\/p>\n
The front-rower had become adept at keeping his concussions private, developing coping mechanisms that would see him rock up to training on Monday morning despite getting sparked in the head on the Saturday.<\/p>\n
It was while writing an in-season autobiography on that 2009\/10 campaign<\/a> when Jackman realised how much a part concussion was actually having in his life, and he went to speak to Cheika after Leinster<\/a> had qualified from their Heineken Cup pool to tell him that he was retiring at the end of the season.<\/p>\n At that time, Cheika<\/a> had no issue with Jackman\u2019s plan to stop playing after Leinster\u2019s campaign in Europe ended. However, two days after the province was beaten by Toulouse in the semi-finals in May 2010, Jackman\u2019s request to no longer give everything to the squad with a Celtic League title still to play for resulted in the Australian banishing the Irishman from the club\u2019s premises in Dublin.<\/p>\n \u201cI kept ignoring it and dealing with it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n More of that incident later, but let\u2019s first report on Jackman\u2019s relief that 15 years after he hung up his boots, there are no ill effects from the multiple concussions he suffered. Appearing on The Business End<\/a> with fellow retired front-rowers, the ex-London Irish duo of Liam Mooney and Justin Fitzpatrick, he recalled how rugby was very na\u00efve about concussion at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cYou never had anyone out back then for concussion; it was just part and parcel,\u201d said Jackman<\/a>. \u201cYou could get sparked on a Saturday and rock up Monday and go again unless you admitted to it. I didn\u2019t see it as a reason to stop.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with concussion for me was when I got my first or second concussion, it was a big deal, frightened me a little bit, but then I became very used to it.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that if I got a concussion mid-game, I could stay on the ground and say I needed to change a contact lens or I always had a cut on my cauliflower ear that I could open up and have a bit of blood, go into a blood bin for a couple of minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew if I could buy time, I would be able to get my bearings enough that I could play on\u2026 I didn\u2019t want to miss a match, didn\u2019t want to be taken off early because of concussion and lose the confidence of the coach, so I kept ignoring it and dealing with it.<\/p>\n \u201cI am so lucky that I haven\u2019t had the long-term effects<\/a> that so many of my former teammates or opponents have had. I had a brain scan a year ago as part of a study through Rugby Players Ireland, and thankfully everything is as it should be for a man of my age [49] regardless of the concussion that I had.\u201d<\/p>\n All Blacks legend explains how the death of Shane Christie hit him \u2018pretty badly\u2019, believes ex-Highlanders star was \u2018gagged\u2019 over report<\/a><\/p>\n Looking back on his concussion habit in his final season, he explained: \u201cI think I had 24 concussions that year. These aren\u2019t getting knocked out and stretchered off, but they were concussions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt could be just in a tackle drill against a bag would actually leave me dizzy and get a migraine straight away and maybe stumble for a second. It was only when I read back the transcript that I realised how significant it was.<\/p>\n \u201cI left it in because I wanted the book to be honest. And when I went promoting the book that is what everyone zoomed in on. I was really shocked that people didn\u2019t realise the masculinity and the bravado meant we didn\u2019t take it seriously at the time as players.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of my former teammates weren\u2019t happy with me for sharing it, but thankfully now you see a game where concussion is very much on the mind of players, coaches, mentors, parents, supporters, medics. We have moved on a long way, and we needed to.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I wanted to do was highlight that at the end of my career we were still a little bit loose in that (concussion) aspect, and I wanted to accept my own part in that. I think I am reasonably intelligent, but what I did wasn\u2019t intelligent; it wasn\u2019t bright or smart, but I was so focused.<\/p>\n Bernard Jackman\u2019s Team of My Life: Seven England legends feature alongside All Blacks \u2018rock star\u2019 and \u2018wild\u2019 Welshman<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI knew my career was heading towards the end, and I wanted to milk every last moment of that. I didn\u2019t want to walk away from the game because of an injury I would have always felt I could have kept playing (with) if that makes sense, whereas if I blew out my knee, it\u2019s taken away from me.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, by not declaring those concussions to the medics and by keeping it secret, I felt I was doing the right thing selfishly to prolong my career. That\u2019s honestly where I am. I\u2019m not proud of it, but I also think if I didn\u2019t have that mindset I mightn\u2019t have lasted as long as I did either. I have just been very lucky that up to now there has been no long-term damage.\u201d<\/p>\n Switching to his story about Cheika forcibly telling him, \u201cI\u2019ll decide when you retire\u201d, Jackman admitted he now understands why the coach reacted the way he did, even though he was angered by the Australian at the time.<\/p>\n They have worked on pitch-side media broadcasts since then and were both were at the 10-year reunion in 2019 to celebrate Leinster\u2019s first European Cup win in 2009, so no bad blood has lingered. But their bust-up was difficult when it happened, and Jackman putting it in his autobiography only exacerbated the aggravation.<\/p>\n How a 10am can of Tetley\u2019s Bitter with 90-year-old war veteran left Dean Richards \u2018absolutely gobsmacked\u2019 the morning after his three-year Bloodgate ban<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have been overly popular for putting that in the book, but that\u2019s what happened. I am completely at peace now. At the time, I was really angry,\u201d said Jackman, explaining that he would keep training in the gym and do the non-contact part of the rugby session but would only play in the Celtic League play-offs if someone got sick or was injured.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018No, that\u2019s not how it works here. I decide.\u2019 I was effectively kicked out of the building for about 24 hours. Some of the senior players went to speak to him and I was allowed to come back in, but it ruined my last few weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s on me. I could have just said nothing and finished the season. At the time, I was angry with him, and that\u2019s why it comes out on the book. But when I think back about it and reflect, that attitude from him is what helped Leinster change.<\/p>\n \u201cWe needed someone who only went north and was ruthless and relentless because we weren\u2019t that way as a squad when he took over (in 2005)\u2026 Because of what Michael Cheika did and how he led, I had one of the greatest days of my life, which was being part of the first Leinster team to win the European Cup.<\/p>\n