Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Who knows what World Rugby can do? - Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

Well it's fair to say World Rugby's copping it today, even more so than yesterday.

This is following the death of Shane Christie, the former Highlander who had the headaches and the memory loss and all those other symptoms that were consistent with CTE from too many head knocks.

A former Wales #8 with early onset dementia, Alex Popham, has gone straight to World Rugby and the All Blacks' Twitter accounts and told them they've got blood on their hands. 

And our very own Scotty Stevenson has written a piece saying it's time to stop spending money on PR - this is obviously for rugby - and start spending money on helping the former players with these symptoms.

Absolutely. I mean, there is no doubt that World Rugby could be doing more, right?

The stand down period for a professional rugby player for a suspected concussion is - what do you think?

12 days. That's ridiculous. 

In boxing, it's 30 days. And if they actually lose consciousness and they know they've lost consciousness, it could be anywhere from 6 months up that they're forced to stand down.

I think we've all seen pretty gnarly cases of head knocks recently or players talking about migraines over the summer period, only for them to be back on the field when they, if you were being careful, should not be back on the field.

And who knows what World Rugby will be forced to do once these lawsuits are successful.

But here's the thing - our ability to keep blaming the rugby bosses is going to run out, if it hasn't already. No player in 2025 can blame World Rugby if they end up with these symptoms in years to come.

No one playing rugby in 2025 doesn't know that if you take repeated knocks to the head, you are opening yourself up to future problems. We know that.

In fact, we already knew it when Shane Christie was playing professionally, even if we didn't know it as widely as we do today.

It is terrible that this may be the thing that has happened to him and it is terrible that it is undoubtedly happening to rugby players playing today, but personal responsibility is now very much in play here.

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