![\"Alix](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Alix-Popham.jpeg\")
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open image in gallery<\/p>\n
Alix Popham (right) won 46 caps for Wales (Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at my brain as an old Nokia battery \u2013 I\u2019ve only got so much bandwidth,\u201d he explains. \u201cI\u2019ve had to pull back and recognise that. Before that, I didn\u2019t know I had this issue, so I\u2019d just plough on, and that would be where I\u2019d have this explosion. I just couldn\u2019t control it. Now I am understanding it a bit more, it is definitely better. But it\u2019s not perfect.\u201d <\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Kat Merchant remembers her first concussion<\/a>, or brain injury<\/a>, vividly; her last rather less so. Always a top talent, the 2014 World Cup winner was already playing in the Premiership for Worcester as a 16-year-old when she suffered a first major incident that made her up to three times more likely to get another. \u201cI got knocked out fully, threw up, went to A&E,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI started having more and more through my career, but it wasn\u2019t something we knew about back then. It was just like another injury.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Wing Kat Merchant won the World Cup with England in 2014 (Getty Images)<\/p>\n By the time of World Cup triumph 13 years later, Merchant knew she was done, retiring after the tournament. \u201cIn 2013, I had a seizure during a game. People were looking at me going, \u2018will you play again? Are you ok?\u2019 My family were there and I didn\u2019t recognise them. I was completely all over the place. I didn\u2019t see it, so didn\u2019t know and didn\u2019t get the magnitude of it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was 16, I wanted to play the next day. In 2013, that took me almost four months to even be able to exercise. It was a real struggle. I knew that I couldn\u2019t live like that, and in that way. I still wanted to play in that World Cup, so I did, but after that, that was it. Those four months were dark.\u201d<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Unlike Popham and Merchant, Damian Bailey never played at the elite level. \u201cI was once the world\u2019s smallest scrum half dodging people,\u201d he quips. His interest in concussion in rugby comes from a different place. A professor of physiology, the Welshman is the director of the Neurovascular Research Laboratory at the University of South Wales. \u201cI\u2019m interested in what happens in the brain when it is bashed about,\u201d is how he bluntly puts it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lot of speculation, controversy and misinformation at the moment about what are the long-term implications of recurrent contact and impact,\u201d Bailey explains. \u201cI don\u2019t like to use the word concussion. We\u2019ve done a number of clinical studies where we have looked at the consequences of recurrent impact in order to identify that we are detecting mild traumatic brain injury, and it is manifesting itself in changes that would align to accelerated cognitive decline.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Lions captain Maro Itoje suffered a concussion during the British and Irish Lions tour (Getty Images)<\/p>\n \u201cThe game has changed incredibly. We\u2019re seeing huge impacts with forces as high as 200G, it\u2019s just phenomenal. We have got players on the pitch that are almost like bodybuilders, so the impact that the players are experiencing is just enormous. We\u2019ve got a lot of people who are now interested in the field, which for me is really important. We\u2019ve got physicists, mathematicians, chemists, biologists, neurologists, clinicians, all with a healthy appetite to look at this, all to answer a question that I think is a no-brainer: Is rugby associated with brain injury?\u201d<\/p>\n — <\/p>\n It is that difficult question that rugby cannot disentangle itself from. Like all contact sports, there is a significant injury risk each time a player steps on to the pitch or training field, but the situation surrounding brain injuries is harder to assess. A large proportion of players at any level will have experienced symptoms that align with concussion, or been diagnosed during their career \u2013 but the long-term impacts of sub-concussive blows are still, to some extent, unclear. Anecdotally, though, the stories are troubling. \u201cPeople have died too young because of this,\u201d Popham claims. \u201cPeople are struggling. Families are struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n Head for Change, a charity founded by Popham and wife Melanie, strive to pioneer positive change in prioritising brain health in sport. The recent findings of the inquest related to the death of former Manchester United and Scotland footballer Gordon McQueen<\/a> shows that this is far from just a rugby issue, but Popham\u2019s experience within the sport means that he speaks from a place of both understanding and care when he suggests what it is doing wrong. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n An inquest found that heading a football is “likely” to have contributed to the brain disease suffered by Gordon McQueen (PA Wire)<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not putting the player first. That\u2019s all I care about. I still love the sport. People think, \u2018you are trying to kill the game\u2019, but I\u2019m not. The game is killing itself. It\u2019s not the game on a Saturday, that is as safe as it can be. The majority of changes that we want to make are through the week, Monday to Friday, the length of the season, the number of minutes of contact training.\u201d <\/p>\n Popham has found renewed purpose since his diagnosis. He finds his work with Head for Change highly rewarding; he is training for another Ironman triathlon in Portugal, not wishing to push his limits but instead just cross the finish line with friends and raise awareness. He is also one of 787 claimants from rugby union<\/a> in a lawsuit against World Rugby<\/a>, the Rugby Football Union<\/a> (RFU) and Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).<\/p>\n The case, brought by law firm Rylands Garth, is being run in tandem with a lawsuit brought by former rugby league players against the Rugby Football League (RFL). The next hearings are set for 18 and 19 March at London\u2019s High Court, with trial judge Justice Lambert expected to attend. That will come nearly five-and-a-half years since The Guardian first reported legal action was on the way. <\/p>\n Nobody involved thought that it would be a straightforward process but Popham is frustrated that the delays have perhaps held up progress for the players of today. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n World Rugby says that player welfare is its top priority (Getty Images)<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a playbook that the other side have got to play. It\u2019s deny, deny, delay, deny, kick the can down the road as long as possible,\u201d Popham says. World Rugby denies that this is the case. In December, meanwhile, appeal judge Lord Justice Dias, held that at an earlier hearing, Senior Master Jeremy Cook, had been right to find that the claimants\u2019 firm, Rylands Garth, had failed to fulfil its obligations to disclose necessary medical material to the defendants.<\/p>\n \u201cI know what has been put together from our legal team, and I know that they get a bad rap in the press, but there is a 150-page medical report on each player,\u201d Popham suggests. \u201cThey\u2019ve done it right. It is frustrating because boys are struggling, families are struggling, and it\u2019s the whole ripple effect. I can\u2019t wait to go to trial and have the evidence of what has been done.\u201d<\/p>\n World Rugby insists that player welfare remains a top priority. Dr Brett Robinson, a former 16-cap Australia international who has a doctorate of Philosophy in Clinical Orthopaedics at Oxford, was elected as chair of the governing body last year. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of everything we have done and continue to do,\u201d he tells The Independent. \u201cBut that\u2019s something we would be doing in any case. We are doubling down on extending all of the great things we\u2019ve done. It\u2019s an incredible story of understanding what the issues were that we were facing. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Dr Brett Robinson is the chair of World Rugby (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n \u201cThe other wonderful initiative that World Rugby has invested in over the last couple of years is a brain health service. I\u2019ve actually gone through it myself as an ex-player. It helps identify at-risk players who might need support, and we\u2019ve launched I think six or seven of those across the world, and are intending to launch more.\u201d<\/p>\n Those with knowledge of the proceedings still believe a trial is some way off. World Rugby will proactively publish its generic defence on Friday.<\/p>\n — <\/p>\n The legal case is just one strand of a more complicated landscape for rugby. Like most recreational sports around the world, the pandemic hit participation numbers significantly but there are wider concerns about players of all ages walking away from the game<\/a>. In October 2024, an independently chaired review commissioned by the RFU urged the union make radical changes in schools rugby to avoid becoming a \u201cdeclining minority sport\u201d. The RFU has since introduced a non-contact form of the sport called T1 Rugby.<\/p>\n World Rugby, meanwhile, will soon recommend that the permitted tackle height be lowered to the sternum in the community game following trials in 11 unions over the past 18 months. That change will also be trialled at the U20 World Cup in Georgia later this year to look at how it may impact the elite game. <\/p>\n \u201cI think it is roughly 150,000 tackles that we\u2019ve looked at, and from the global work we have done, we can see that reducing the tackle height has had an impact. We will be recommending at the next council meeting that it becomes a global expectation,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n A lower tackle height will be trialled at the U20 World Cup (Getty Images)<\/p>\n \u201cWe would be silly not to look at that in terms of the elite game, so the 20s is going to be that environment. But I think it would be a big step to take. There are other things we do at the elite game that we don\u2019t do in the community game. You don\u2019t have loads of cameras, you don\u2019t have instrumented mouthguards, you don\u2019t have clinicians on the sideline. So you have to position the context of the wrapping around the issue and how different it is to the community game. That\u2019s probably the nuance in that conversation, but we are definitely taking a look at it because a lot of the unions wanted us to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n Bailey, for his part, would take contact out of the game altogether, though recognises that is not a majority view. \u201cUltimately, for me, sport is about keeping us healthy and keeping us safe,\u201d he says. \u201cExercise is unequivocally the best medicine. Rugby has taught me so much, and I\u2019ve taken so much from the game. But the impact is the elephant on the room. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is something that we cannot turn a blind eye too. From an ethical point of view, we have to find the risk and have that transparent conversation with school children, with players. We have to regulate contact far better; I\u2019d like to pull it out of the game completely myself, which is quite difficult, of course. You\u2019ve got audiences that are baying for the gladiatorial big hits. But it is about encouraging activity and social inclusion, and looking after our players so that they have a wonderful three or four decades of life ahead of them.\u201d<\/p>\n At the elite level, there can still be a culture of silence around concussion, both within environments and beyond. For that reason, it was positive that Garry Ringrose self-reported symptoms having been named in the starting British and Irish Lions team for the second Test against Australia in Melbourne last July. Instrumented mouthguards have provided another tool <\/a>to help record impacts, and it is understood that the manufacturers are hoping to do more with the technology in time.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Garry Ringrose stood himself down from featuring in a British and Irish Lions Test (PA Wire)<\/p>\n \u201cI think the conversation has changed a lot,\u201d Merchant, who has had a brain scan and not shown any signs of a neurodegenerative condition, says. \u201cI think if I played nowadays. I\u2019d have retired at 24, rather than 28. They\u2019d have called it a lot earlier. I always think about that \u2013 I wouldn\u2019t have got to win a World Cup\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI like the mouthguards; I like everything they are trying to bring in. It\u2019s not perfect, but they are trying to bring things in. Some players are still scared to talk about concussion. It is still kept hush-hush, and it needs not to be.\u201d<\/p>\n More research, too, is required. Merchant notes that studies have found that brain injuries are both sustained and suffered differently by women to men. \u201cWhen the men\u2019s game went amateur to professional, there were guys who went from training twice-a-week to suddenly training a lot more,\u201d she points out. \u201cThe women are going through that now; they need to be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n The women\u2019s game is professionalising rapidly (Getty Images)<\/p>\n It is, of course, a fast-moving, fast-changing and fast-developing field. After Lewis Moody\u2019s diagnosis with motor neurone disease last year<\/a>, the Motor Neurone Disease Association said that the latest research suggests a correlation <\/a>between traumatic brain injuries and MND, but that the same research has not proven that traumatic brain injuries are a cause of MND. Studies are perhaps further along into other neurodegenerative conditions, but some of these can only be clinically diagnosed after death. <\/p>\n \u201cThe study we are doing at the moment, and Head for Change are helping to recruit many of the participants, is the bit in between. The big knowledge gap,\u201d Bailey explains. \u201cThese are players that are middle aged, 30-59 years of age, that have been given a diagnosis of probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This is known as traumatic encephalopathy syndrome. <\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t clinically diagnose CTE until after death, so what we are interested in here is that these are players that are symptomatic. We are looking at a variety of blood-borne, saliva-borne, neuroimagery-borne biomarkers that we hope will be more sensitive and specific so we can understand the pathophysiology behind the clinical symptoms. And then, ultimately, we want to be able to affect counter-measures to try to slow this down without changing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n The overall backdrop is complex and concerning for a sport so often riddled with contradictions. Part of what attracts spectators and viewers to rugby is that \u201cgladiatorial\u201d nature referenced by Bailey, but it cannot survive if player numbers begin to dwindle. Financially, too, the ramifications of a major settlement could be significant, if that is where the court case ends up. Already, the spend on legal fees and associated costs is significant, which is having an impact on World Rugby. <\/p>\n But Popham, and others like him, known that there are plenty of past and present players who will be in need of help. After taking his own life in 2023, the former Maori All Black Billy Guyton was diagnosed with stage 2 CTE. Shane Christie, his friend and former teammate, set up a foundation in his mate\u2019s memory to help players with concussions; Christie died a day before his 40th birthday last August in a suspected suicide having told friends he believed he had CTE, too.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, I look in the mirror and I am doing this for the right reason,\u201d Popham concludes. \u201cThis great game can still carry on \u2013 we just need to look after our players better.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Billy Guyton took his own life in 2023 (Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-509914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Wing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Kat-Merchant.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Lions](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Maro-Itoje.jpeg\")
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