100% Wire wrote:
Surely at some point you have to accept that playing a contact sport carries potential dangers? Protect as much as you can but common sense has flown the nest, seemingly never to return.
It's all to do with
1. Ensuring the RFL can get insurance to cover against potential head injury claims down the line.
2. Ensuring the RFL has a defence that "reasonable endeavours" were taken under their implied duty of care to the players.
The truth is RL is a brutal sport, and plenty of past players are hobbling around with limb/joint injuries and, sadly, brain injuries, which have arisen due to playing the game.
In the past this was known as an "occupational hazard" and players accepted the risks when they played and didn't seek to sue the RFL later in life.
In this modern era of "the blame", personal injury lawyers see a massive opportunity for undertaking "no win no fee" claims on behalf of past players looking for financial compensation. Perhaps even group actions.
It's a tough balancing act, but, in my view, the efforts being taken to "protect the game for the future" by zealous disciplinary committee members (P Cullen for example) will result in no worthwhile game left to protect.
The combination of the RFL making a pigs ears of managing the issue and the nature of the times we live in lead us to a real existential threat to the game we love/loved.
