Former Wales captain Sam Warburton has faced criticism after suggesting that the media doesn’t sufficiently highlight the safety of rugby. Now a BBC pundit, Warburton retired from professional rugby in 2018 and insists that the sport is safe despite increasing concerns about traumatic brain injuries. He argues that negative media coverage, particularly during the ongoing legal dispute between World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union, and the Welsh Rugby Union and several ex-players over brain injury impacts, has affected grassroots participation.
“The media don’t do a good enough role in actually trying to promote the safety of rugby because obviously the clickbait that you want from head injuries is an obvious one,” Warburton stated on BBC’s Rugby Special. He had previously expressed similar views during the BBC’s live coverage of Wales vs Ireland. “If boxing had the same protocols as rugby, most heavyweight fights wouldn’t go beyond two or three rounds,” he said. “They’d just be called off.
“If you’ve shown one concussive symptom, which I think is like one of 14 or one of 12 – that’s like dizziness, loss of speech, nausea – all these different symptoms. Being concussed doesn’t mean being knocked out, it can be a load of things. Boxing, if they followed our protocols… mate, boxing would almost be dead.
“I think rugby is very progressive in the money they’ve spent on research and the due diligence they do to make sure that players remain as healthy as possible. I’m actually very reassured by the work.
“And also at grassroot level, like that’s the big problem we have with it. The ripple effect of this negative press goes down to grassroot level. Grassroot level rugby, statistically now – this is not anecdotal – is very, very safe. But because of the image that certain outlets like to give it, it wrecks our participation.
“It’s a great sport to play. It’s only at the very, very top of the game it needs to get policed well and I think it does get policed well now. 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have said that. Now I do think it does.”
Melanie Bramwell-Popham, wife of former Wales international Alix Popham, said on X: “He seems to be doubling down on parroting someone’s agenda here – with very misinformed and uneducated comments. Feels quite tragic to watch.” Popham was one of the first high-profile names involved in the legal action, after going public with his diagnosis of early onset dementia and probable CTE in December 2020.
Daily Mail journalist Heather Dewar has labelled his remarks about clickbait as “disgraceful”, stating that “no journo wants to tell the tale of someone suffering a head injury, just for the “clicks”.
She added: “It’s not the media’s job to promote the safety of rugby. That’s down to World Rugby- who, it has to be said, ARE trying to make strides in this field. Nobody wants to see the demise of the game. Most of the people who speak out about it just want recognition of the risks, and a safer way to continue the sport.”
Former Wales Rugby League CEO Gareth Kear also voiced his criticism, posting on social media: “Sam you are wrong, (Boxing accepted) Union players are concussed 1 -2 times x 30 -50 games.”
He continued: “I watched George North knocked out twice in the same game on TV playing for Wales! Concussion is the safeguarding tsunami coming to sport, how many parents know the signs and RTP Protocols?”
These comments come in the wake of former World Rugby senior medical advisor Barry O’Driscoll’s call for the jackal – a move Warburton was renowned for – to be banned from the game as a radical step towards making the sport safer.
O’Driscoll, who resigned from his role with the sport’s governing body in 2012 in protest against the introduction of specific concussion protocols, namely the head injury assessment, has long been vocal about safeguarding the sport.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, he stated: “The amount of contact will have to be reduced. They’ve already attempted to take the contact with the head out and rightly so. That was a dramatic change. They need to be strict on that. The hits are so hard now.
“The next step for me is the jackal. That has to go. I think we’ve also got too many players on the field. I’d take it to 13. I know some people would say “Oh gosh, old boy – that’s rugby league”, but I think that’s an option, even if the authorities will fight that.”
This story originally appeared on Wales Online
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