Agree with these comments with the exception of the comment about gale which I don’t understand.

When I started watching in the early 70’s and for the next decade the 3 players who took countless late head shots were John Holmes, Roger Millward and Dave Topliss. They were all class and all played for a long time and Toppo and Holmes certainly played over 600 games, not sure about Roger. Millward only retired when he suffered a 4th broken jaw in a year.

Sadly, they all passed away too soon and Millward’s cancer started with a growth in his jaw If memory serves me right.

I’ve always thought the hammer they took had a huge impact on them passing too young.

The game is less dirty now but the regular impacts are far heavier and you can’t train to build muscle and protection around your brain.

Hope Stevie finds a new vocation, he’s got a lot to offer. He’s a good lad

Can’t bring myself to watch this as too sad......

Me neither

The collisions between players are so forceful these days as they are literally giants, their bodies must take a ridiculous amount of hammer. Whilst in days gone by there was dirty play, punching and occasionally worse, players usually knew it was coming and managed to avoid the worst of the contact.

I’m not so sure that they can do that these days when 100kg is flying towards you and you’re static trying to stop it…

That’s without going into head contact.

Good point. Maybe the only hope is a mix of tweaking the rules to reduce head collisions, and reduce the number of games to allow actual recovery time. Can't see the latter happening any time soon though.

Having thought long and hard I can’t see a future for RL.
Rule changes wouldn’t have stopped what happened to Stevie. Game us just too brutal now, as players are too big and powerful....,,,

It's about stripping out some of the more harmful aspects if this can be done, not eliminating risk entirely.
As parallels, the government could cut the speed limit to 30mph, criminalise smoking, ban wild swimming. As for reducing COVID transmission..
Of course the game has a future

Just tried to watch it. I honestly can’t. The kid just wanted to play for his hometown club.....

It really wasnt that bad.

He just don’t look good mate. Lost a lot of weight. I’ve seen people post concussion and know it can go on for years. Just feel so sorry for him as one of my favourite players, and incredible bloke to boot....

harrowing......

Hopefully the club have ensured the insurance policy in place enables him to have access to the necessary private medical care and and a suitable income stream.

The lad was pure class when he played, such a shame at such a young age having to give up the game. RU appear to be in front of RL in terms of head high tackles, but changes have to be made to make the game safer.
It starts with rules in the game, and the referee applying those rules., The same applies to the touch judges they need to report what they see to the referee, the number of head high shots that go unpunished because they go unseen. Maybe a case for the video ref to advise what he sees. The head high shots that are seen are not the main problem ( although they are serious) its the head shots that go unpunished and are unseen that are the problem, the knees in the tackle that hit the head. Too much goes unpunished. Its like some players go out to physically hurt players especially in the tackle when the player is on the ground. The game is hard enough without having to accept head shots. Better tackling techniques need to be introduced at a young age.

Head shots straight red card, followed by a ban. It will hurt the game for a couple of years but the players will soon learn,

The only way to stop players from coming into concat with another players head is to send them off and ban them for a long time (10 games +) when it happens, accidentally or not.

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.