{"id":64286,"date":"2025-10-07T02:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T02:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/64286\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T02:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T02:02:07","slug":"support-for-lewis-moody-from-irish-rugby-figures-following-motor-neuron-disease-diagnosis-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/64286\/","title":{"rendered":"Support for Lewis Moody from Irish rugby figures following motor neuron disease diagnosis \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland<\/a> winger James Lowe<\/a> and former international backrow Se\u00e1n O\u2019Brien<\/a> have expressed sympathy for former England captain Lewis Moody after he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease<\/a> (MND).<\/p>\n

The 47-year-old, who played club rugby with Leicester and Bath, is the latest former athlete to be diagnosed with the disease.<\/p>\n

Lowe described the news as \u201csad\u201d, adding: \u201cPoor dude, poor family. You hate to see it, don\u2019t you? Fingers crossed there\u2019s a cure that comes around and if there\u2019s anything that they need from the Irish rugby community, I\u2019m sure we\u2019re all going to be hands on deck because it sucks.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a prolific player. Photos of him and Drico (Brian O\u2019Driscoll) I saw before heading into the Six Nations, you\u2019re just like, \u2018how can\u2019 . . . so unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the MND Association, there is a \u201ccorrelation\u201d between contact sports and the disease. It added that while the athletes studied were more likely to develop MND than the average person, it has not been proven that the sports directly caused the condition.<\/p>\n

There is no cure but drugs such as Tofersen have been found to slow down the disease, although it only works effectively in half of the patients who take it.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, now part of the Leinster coaching staff, contacted Moody on Monday.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cLewis Moody . . . do you kind of go, \u2018oh my God, another one?\u2019 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just rugby. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, obviously the way he (Moody) played the game was more old school, starting out with Leicester. It was a brawl every day over there, by all accounts. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s 100 per cent better 1759802527. Even since I\u2019ve come back after I finished up and retired, I\u2019ve never seen anything that would have gone on in our day at training.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, rugby has definitely changed a lot and moves on very quickly. It\u2019s unfortunate for Lewis and [his] family and everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lowe added that although the smart mouthguards and closer attention paid to head injuries in the modern game can be frustrating for players, it is worth the inconvenience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think technology is probably the best thing,\u201d he said. \u201cThe mouthguards and everything like that can be a bit of a pain in the arse, I\u2019m not going to lie.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if it can stop a few people with a few head bangs, a few delayed onset concussions . . . At the end of the day, you only get one brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can do all the bones and hamstrings off the bone, hamstrings and muscles and tendons, but they haven\u2019t figured out how to fix the head yet, so better safe than sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland winger James Lowe and former international backrow Se\u00e1n O\u2019Brien have expressed sympathy for former England captain Lewis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,43964,43966,43965,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-64286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-james-lowe","11":"tag-motor-neurone-disease","12":"tag-sean-o-brien","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}