Retires with immediate effect! WTF! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/32515217

Retires with immediate effect! WTF! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/32515217

Just give it a couple of days and Saints will make a bid for Gary Wheeler.

That's come out of the blue, they can have wheeler as far as I'm concerned.

We've signed Shannon McDonnell to cover for the rest of the season whilst Lomax is out for the season and Wellens is pretty much ruined by his hip injury.

It does however shift a big salary off our cap, which with the rumoured exit of Josh Jones to rugby union, would leave us in a position to make another signing.

Wheeler?????

Whilst reading that, there is also a link on the BBC RL page to the 1979 JPT final when we got beat by Widnes, 'starring' chief thug Jim Mills " if I don't take a couple of lads out of the game, then I'm doing something wrong" Wonder how long he would last in todays game?! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/32496484

Whilst reading that, there is also a link on the BBC RL page to the 1979 JPT final when we got beat by Widnes, 'starring' chief thug Jim Mills " if I don't take a couple of lads out of the game, then I'm doing something wrong" Wonder how long he would last in todays game?! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/32496484

I doubt it. More like Kurt Gidley or someone we were planning to sign next season.

He could always sign for Salford.

Litigation in the pipeline?
Has he had concussion issues before? If not, I bet there's a few squeaky bums with WN postcodes, tonight.

Shame for the fella.

Hopefully he's okay. It'll be interesting to see what happens from here. There is a lot of litigation going around in the NFL at the moment, with huge sums being paid out. Sums that would financially ruin the RFL, even if scaled down to our salary levels. You have to wonder how robust the RFL would be under this kind of action. I'm sure there wouldn't be a shortage of other players with similar conditions who have just put up with it or accepted it as the result of playing league for so long. I'm no legal or medical expert, but if it can be proven it was the Flower punch and there is action against him, I have no problems with that, he deserves it and it was clearly an intentional act.

There is no indication yet that it's coming, but we'll have to wait and see.

Now he has come out and said his retirement was due to a concussion-related illness, this could be the start of a very long and dangerous road for the RFL as far as litigation is concerned, come to think of it, the RFU would probably be brought into it too.

It's not as though the players sign any form of contract ahead of time, absolving the code(s) from any damages caused by the sport....or do they?!

There are potentially lots of legal questions - have players signed a waiver of any claim (and from memory I think you can't exclude liability for personal injury anyway?), to what extent have players impliedly given consent to a certain amount of physical contact and risk by taking the field, is there a duty of care which a club/governing body has to players to manage that risk and protect players, and if so what is the extent of that duty? I suspect a lot of these questions will surface over the next few years, it could be a minefield.

Yeah, I would love to find out from anyone who knows what is stipulated in a players contract as regards personal injury brought on by events on the field of play?!

Interesting article on the Saints forum - scary stuff m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article ... d=11264856

Interesting article on the Saints forum - scary stuff m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article ... d=11264856

Sadly this has been the case for a long, long, time. Although it relates to most sports not just rugby.