10 | SPORT | RUGBY S1 Sunday Independent 6 March 2016 Always check the background The 70 so-called experts lack the qualifications or experience to dictate to us about rugby injuries NEIL FRANCIS HIS one is about failure in the media, more specifically failure to question. I read the financial press every day. On a regular basis TI come across articles where I am told that some Gordon Gekko-type hedge fund principal or financier tells us he is really worried and he thinks sterling will devalue by two or three per cent in the next month. The explanations as to why this will happen are somewhat plausible but please . no panic. There is no byline, no author, and no references — nothing under the piece to suggest any attribution. We have no idea where it came from or who penned it. It just appeared. There is nothing to substantiate it or no counter-argument or editorial to challenge it. So we read it and repeat it to our mates. I see Gordon Gekko says sterling will devalue by two or three per cent in the next month. It then becomes a fact. What is indisputable is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The boys have all short positions in place and when the forest fire starts, they collect. A month later we are all blown away. That fella Gordon Gekko is a bloody genius. Put something out there in the newspaper and if nobody checks or challenges it, well then it is a fact. Wednesday evening came slowly and my editor calls. I thought I was going to lose the will to live if he suggested an Italian preview. “That schools tackling ban thing” . he didn’t want a preview either. Later that evening a couple of calls came through to see if I would go on radio/TV and talk about this letter penned by the ‘Sport Collision Injury Collective’ and sent to all the appropriate governmental bodies on these islands. To sanitise any contact sport is to take the essence completely out of them Seventy medical doctors, academics and healthcare professionals had signed as The Sun have been examining what referred to the former Archbishop of in the UK and Ireland — where these know he could have watched 500 schools rugby against their will”. My eldest son their names to the letter calling for Professor Anderson has said in lectures Canterbury, now Master of Magdalene people wish to implement the ban. The games and decided it was too dangerous. played some rugby at Willow Park, didn’t a ban on tackling in rugby union at and articles over the years. College Cambridge, Rowan Williams only way to find out is not to assume but Or Dr Johannes Fuss from the University enjoy the game and so he stopped with schools level. Here’s one from a lecture in Oxford as an “arsehole”, “a total bigot” and “a to check it out yourself, otherwise you Medical Centre of Hamburg-Eppendorf, his parents’ approval. My middle boy There is active debate on this after all, University where students reported him fucking liar”. are not certain. who looks like he is a real doctor but he prefers to read books and he won’t be so when this collective of medical profes- to have said: “I’m going to cuss a lot and What Anderson said is on the record Most of Anderson’s colleagues from is a sex researcher and a forensic psy- compelled to play rugby against his will, sionals makes a call like this it is prudent I’m going to break down all kinds of and is substantiated. There are a number Winchester University who signed the chiatrist. How could this man possibly and I don’t know of any child who is to listen to what they have to say. I didn’t hegemonic structures. If you’re offended of other unsubstantiated claims made letter are not doctors of medicine. They know anything about tackling in schools forced against their will to play if their go on the airwaves. How objective could by discussions of anal sex, vaginal sex, about him. I can’t comment on that. are people who hold a BSc in Sports rugby in Ireland and the UK? There parents don’t want them to play. It is a I be? I was part of the problem, big ol’ rimming, cheating, having cum all over What I can comment on is that I find could be four or five Fusses coming up preposterous assertion. me running over or through little Jimmy [your] face then you should probably it inappropriate that a 46-year-old man the tramlines in Clongowes Wood or Whenever I see something like the and sending him off to hospital. I had a leave.” in a position of responsibility would Contact is what Roscrea . maybe not! United Nations Convention on the reasonable thread of thought prepared He then claimed to have had sex with boast about this to a packed lecture hall. How could a hugely diverse and geo- Rights of the Child (article 19) — read it when I thought I better read the letter. “easily over a thousand people”. Irrespective of what the age of consent graphically diverse group of people, most online — then I think these people are If 70 respected medical professionals “I like sex with 16, 17, 18-year-old boys is or the individual’s sexuality or sexual they seek. There of whom have no experience of watching devolved from the real world. and academics had co-operated on this particularly, it’s getting harder for me preferences, what parent could be happy or experiencing schools rugby in Ireland There is legitimacy in trying to lessen project then I had better have a look at to get them but I’m still finding them. that they send their 16/17/18-year-old or the UK, then call for a ban on tackling risk at schools level, and I have to some- what they are saying. I hope between the age of 43 and the son or daughter to a university where a is risk attached in Ireland and the UK? what sympathise with Professor Allyson Sure enough there was merit in some time I die I can have sex with another predator like Anderson resides? Where are the new research studies Pollock, whose son Hamish picked up of what was being outlined, and on the thousand, that would be awesome even There are a number of on-going on the harmful effects of tackling in three significant injuries. Pollock wrote third and fourth pages of the letter were if I have to buy them — of course, not a campaigns for Anderson’s dismissal. to all sport schools rugby? Why aren’t they indexed a book explaining the dangers of playing the names of 70 people from a geograph- problem, you pay for all kinds of enter- So far there have been reprimands and or attached to the letter? The represent- rugby which was aimed at parents. I ically diverse arena. It transpires that the tainment and pleasure.” warnings but no dismissal. atives of this unwieldy group do not would agree with her sentiment that letter was co-written by Allyson Pollock, He also explained that he and his Where were we? Studies, an MSc in Sport and Exercise address any bona fide research or quote “rugby union in schools must distin- Professor of Public Health and Policy at boyfriend like to travel on cruise ships Oh yes, Anderson was one of two Science, and the Doctors are holders the studies or their authors. Anecdotes guish itself from the very brutal game Queen Mary University of London and because “it’s like sex tourism, which is people who authored a letter asking that of PhDs in Sociology and Sport Man- and obscure references. They have dis- practiced by the professionals”. Eric Anderson, Professor of Sport, Mas- just amazing” and “I always screw the tackling in rugby be banned for anyone agement. A huge percentage of these seminated shamelessly unrepresentative For Anderson to suggest that school- culinities and Sexualities at Winchester dancers”. He went on to say “we stop at under the age of 18. In fairness he has signatories would never have been in details with no comparatives or results children — schoolboys in particular — University, formerly King Alfred Teacher a different port every night, go to a club done some research into “the social a trauma room or surgery and could from other sports or activities. should take up Euro Tag or touch rugby Training College. I have to confess I had every night and have sex with people problem of collision trauma in contact make neither head nor tail of an MRI Please tell me that these people did until they are 18 completely misses the no idea what that title meant but I was . you don’t need to know their names”. sports” which we will come back to in a scan. Where are they drawing their not append their names on the basis point about what makes young boys intrigued enough to find out. It turned When asked, Professor Anderson moment, but I’d like to focus on the 70 experiences from? of a five-point programme that could tick. Contact is what they seek. There is out to be a little bit of a Pandora’s box admitted with a laugh that he is a sex- medical professionals and academics So if most of them wouldn’t have apply to a dozen other sports — activi- risk attached to all sport.