France's Yoram Moefana feels the full force of Ben Earl. Photo: Reuters/Denis Balibouze
This year's Six Nations began amid a backdrop of foreboding as 295 players sued rugby's governing bodies over symptoms of brain injury. But it ended on a note of unmistakable defiance, focusing less on class action lawsuits and more on the serious clashes that have become so impolitic to mention.
As England's forwards line up to praise George Martin's monstrous tackling, their team takes to social media to post a video montage of Ben Earl's best carries. Everywhere you look, from Bundy Aki cheering for his destruction of Kyle Stein to France's search for a backpack that actually weighs a ton, this game recaptures its essence.
Bundy Aki stops Kyle Stein. Photo: Getty Images/Charles McQuillan
Once upon a time, it was Australia's National Rugby League that fetishized its biggest hits. The bone-shaking top 100 selections are full of commentators exclaiming, “Score it for yourself” or “Street, he has a family.” They were rarely shy about the brutality below: when an all-out brawl broke out in the 1995 State of Origin match, the pundits reacted not with horror but with praise for the quality of the hitting. The Six Nations is another competition that is quickly losing its squeamishness. How else to explain the surge in popularity of, for example, Martin? Here is the man who, as the story goes, responded to his first England call-up last year by asking head coach Steve Borthwick: «So boss, who do you want me to unseat?»
Until recent weeks, any talk of unseating opponents seemed discordant and perhaps even distasteful. After all, the sport continues to grapple with the horror of former players suffering from early onset dementia. Steve Thompson, England's World Cup-winning hooker in 2003, is just 45 and has no memory of his marriage. Alix Popham, one year his junior and a 33-cap Wales defender, compared his brain to a camera without film. All these heartbreaking stories convey a sense that the sport is in existential danger. But there are signs that rugby is leaning towards a different conclusion, viewing its inherent physical extremes not as fatal flaws but as the very qualities that make it stand out.
Steve Thompson (left) with neurologist Professor Steve Gentleman Photo: Gemma Duncan
Martin, who at 22 is already the 19th 6ft 6in colossus, applies a simple credo to his craft. «The physicality of the sport is the best part,» he said before England's recovery win over Ireland. “These are games, real Test matches, where everything is so physical, it’s just man against man. This is class.» Was this purely youthful naivety? There is now enough evidence to suggest that the most devastating consequences are the ones to be feared rather than celebrated. Carl Hayman, the former All Black who was diagnosed with dementia at 43, compared playing rugby to being in a car accident every week.
And yet, with Martin, you have a young man who expresses, not to put it too subtly, how much he loves destroying people. It illustrates the deep internal conflict in rugby between retired players who blame the game for failing to warn them of brain damage and those who believe the worst consequences are within acceptable risk limits. Mike Tindall, Thompson's teammate and a formidable tackler in his prime, left no doubt about his position, telling Telegraph Sport: “There will be tough knocks. That's why we do Test matches — it's a test of your body, your mind, your soul and that's what people love to see. I think we need to accept who we are.”
This view has many adherents, not least Courtney Laws, an uncompromising figure from whom Martin could be copied. Despite all his giant hits, Laws usually found a way to keep them legal. He was loved for that too: his attack on Jules Plisson in 2015, when he smashed the France midfield with such fury that Twickenham gasped en masse, is the second most viewed moment on the Six Nations YouTube account with 1.4 million views. views (see video below). Now he, too, is pushing back against rhetoric about making rugby safer, arguing that the gladiator game is at the core of rugby's appeal.
This philosophy extends beyond the testing level. Note the tone of Simon Massey-Taylor, chief executive of Premiership Rugby, who, far from extrapolating from the dire warnings from the dementia headlines, is adamant that the sport's physical fitness is crucial to public enjoyment of the game in the country's top division. He cited polling that shows enthusiasm for exciting gear is most common among young people aged 18 to 24, who were previously thought to be deterred by health risks. Online trends support this point: last week, Championship Coventry club posted footage of one high-profile contact, set to heavy bass music and calling it the «clash of the week» (see video below).
Hello @RugbyInsideLine ,
Late but worthy contender for #CollisionOfTheWeek 💥#ComeOnCov 🔵⚪️ pic.twitter.com/NMGDQ7guC2
— Coventry Rugby (@CoventryRugby) March 13, 2024
An amazing, paradoxical cultural shift is taking place. When the scale of the neurological injury claim came to light last December, the widespread expectation was that rugby would have to reinvent itself, that tackling laws would need to be made stricter. But the opposite seems to be happening: far from retreating into its shell, rugby is puffing out its chest and insisting that it has nothing to apologize for.
It's as if the game had gone to the end. circle, at a time when physical destruction was anything but taboo. Let's go back to 1993, when a demonic-looking Brian Moore was featured on a Nike poster alongside the slogan: «It's not winning that matters. This is a showdown.» So much for the subsequent hand-wringing by the Rugby Union, condemning such statements as irresponsible. Rugby returns to its roots, and Martin happily brings about the destruction that Laws once cheerfully caused. Replays of Lowes' victory over Plisson are instructive: you can even hear referee Nigel Owens shouting: «The selection was fair, the timing was good.» It was cruel, but acceptable. And according to a growing school of thought, that's exactly how it should be.
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