Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
No, I'm pretty sure you're right.
This is shocking news. Ryan Jones came over as bright, likeable and a natural leader.
One of the things which put me off rugby after it went fully professional was when, around twenty years ago, I began to notice commentators and pundits almost getting more excited about "big hits" than they would do about tries being scored.
Rugby used to be a sport where you looked to avoid contact and it was a game played to a very high standard by, skilful, smaller men, but with human beings getting bigger because of natural progression, a move towards much bigger backs and the switch to a more power based game where contact is encouraged, it's a different game to what it was and so there are no precedents from the game decades ago about the extent to which we can expect modern day players and those not retired that long ago to not suffer the fate of Ryan Jones and a few others.
Look at all of the modern day players with concussion issues. Rugby is more aware of its inherent dangers than it once was, but it still has an awful long way to go - my best wishes to Ryan Jones and his family, sadly I don't think he'll be the last prominent rugby player from the fairly recent past to receive such devastating news so early in his life.
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