Like others I remember the game when the likes of Holmes, Topliss and Millward played and it was "part of the game" for those players to get taken out by fair means or foul (it was usually foul as they were too good). Back then the second man came in not to lock the ball up but to take the your head off.
I remember the game gradually got cleaned up and the headhunters were removed. A series of 8 match suspensions for deliberate high tackles speeded things up in the late 80s.
Back then players weren't as bulked and weren't as spaced apart. Thus collisions weren't as big. The main risks seemed to come from foul play.
As I see it there is a way to make the game safer. It's to penalise high tackles to the degree that union is but I also think there's a need to get players to scale back on the power, perhaps by limiting players by weight? It might sound mad but it would reduce impact in collisions.
I could use a motor sport analogy here, back in the early 80s in rallying the top class of car was known as Group B. The sport had seen technology evolve so some cars had as much as 500hp or more and the speeds they generated were incredible. Unfortunately the drivers were struggling to control the cars and a series of serious accidents occurred that resulted in power limits being imposed and the cars slowed down along with a number of other safety measures.
I guess what I'm saying is that just because players can be fitter, faster and more powerful as sports science evolves doesn't mean we should allow that to happen. I don't think it's safe. You can't bring in mitigations for ever increasingly forceful collisions. At some point you go too far and I think we're probably there. Player physiques are way different to what they were yet the protection for the head and brain is always the same.
Reduce the weight of the player and you reduce the impact, thus reducing the risk. You're never going to eradicate it completely but I think moving the game back to something like it was in the early 90s in terms of player physique while clamping down on high tackles would make the game safer and more sustainable as we find out more about the effects of concussion long term.
