I remember watching old RU footage and seeing the props engaging then the second row and finally the back row, non of this clashing heads like buffaloes. Strangely enough the scrums ended up as ragged as our scrums. It seems that you can either have good scrums or safe ones. I know what I would prefer.
One of the big problems with sport is that games are engineered to benefit from bigger players and bigger collisions. How about a return to three substitutions or at least no return subs. Bring back fatigue rather than playing players in 10 minute bursts?

The size of RU players is a significant part of the problem, bigger players whom have done far less running around end up imparting huge amounts of kinetic energy in the tackle/scrums/rucks. Bringing on a raft of forwards at 65 minutes adds even more to that.

The scrums are a big part of the problem but when you have very large players steaming in toward players whom have pretty much no way of defending/protecting themselves including their heads at the rucks then this is massively dangerous. yes it's been banned in recent times but still players are smashed against the laws and the forces themselves imparted on prone players is significant even if not direct to the head.

That said Union have done a far better job with head high tackles/contact around the head/neck area, especially arms around the neck in the tackle which do exert forces including rotational to the brain, we have far too much of it that is ignored, and players are also pushing up on the tackled players heads to regain their feet,
Attempted head high swinging arm that don't make contact are basically ignored whilst low impact contact or head contact that comes about due to ball carrier players ducking/falling/being brought down a split second before impact and a tackler has already committed to tackling at x height (that would be legit if not for the change in body position of the attacker) are punished but still far too often nowhere near harshly enough, often on the basis that a player has a 'good' record. This particular excuse for low grade bans for shocking head shots was never more evident in the Sean O'Loughlin decapitation of Chris Annakin a few years ago that got him just a one game ban.

It's that leniency that has a direct affect on how players play the game and the resulting injuries we see, there;s no jeopardy for players in terms of bans and the on report is a cop out of epic proportions, SOL was even waving his arms about as if he'd done nothing wrong.

There's so much more that RL can do but won't because they think doing so sanitises the game, changing the attitude toward tackling and the up top stuff instead of bending your back would go a long way to reducing multiple severe and indeed the minor ones which build up over a career. You can still tackle the crud out of your opponent, and you might even have a micro impact on the brain but it's far better than what we have at the moment.

RU is basically f'cked though, too much of what their sport is about brings about head contact/micro brain injuries multiple times over for forwards.

Well that's a good point and when you think about this debate that has rolled on for years, but is now coming to a head (no pun intended at all) all three forms of "Football" are in the proverbial as regards long term player welfare.

Yes I saw the Union piece showing front rowers banging their heads into each others shoulders on scrum practice.

I also have followed the soccer problems that are coming to a head. It was noted that soccer keep on kicking the ball down the road on this. Graham Souness suggests this is because they have no solution that is workable, hence there is no evidence of a single report on a trial soccer game without heading.

We don't head and now we don't scrum which I hope will be a permanent thing. But what I hate in our game is the sight of players being taken off after head knocks to be assessed by the Doctor to see if they can carry on - great when they do, but sad when they don't as we now know, that an element of irreversable damage has been done.

What's even more upsetting in our game is how certain players receive more head injuries than others, and I mean ball playing half backs, or sometimes ball playing loose forwards getting clobbered high. We have to hammer that out of our own game.....

I certainly don't think RL will avoid this hitting. OK so the scrummaging is completely different to RU but defensively RL players make far more tackles and carries and the collisions are immense. Incidences where players carried on despite head knocks have been happening until very recently. That's bound to have had an effect. The story about Shontayne Hape is very sobering reading. I hope he's feeling better now but it sounded very bad when it came out in 2014. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/shontayne ... BYKPBAL5Y/

I certainly don't think RL will avoid this hitting. OK so the scrummaging is completely different to RU but defensively RL players make far more tackles and carries and the collisions are immense. Incidences where players carried on despite head knocks have been happening until very recently. That's bound to have had an effect. The story about Shontayne Hape is very sobering reading. I hope he's feeling better now but it sounded very bad when it came out in 2014. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/shontayne ... BYKPBAL5Y/