Bobbie Goulding is one of my all-time favourite rugby league players. Along with Paul Newlove, Goulding was one of the main catalysts for the success that Saints have enjoyed over the last 25 years since the dawn of summer rugby and Super League. He captained the side to its first Super League title in 1996, lifting the Challenge Cup for good measure after his barrage of second half bombs turned Nathan Graham into a name that few Saints fans will forget.
To a 21 year-old who had never seen Saints win either the league or the cup this was a new level of joy. It was fresh and exciting and to be frank, no amount of ground out Grand Final wins will ever match it. A couple of years later Sean Long came along and replaced Goulding, going on to become the best halfback I’ve seen running around not only at Saints but in Super League. Yet although his feats were matched and arguably bettered by Long, Goulding remains a Saints legend.
At the risk of sounding a little prehistoric Goulding was a different type of halfback to those you see now. He was an organiser and a leader even if his leadership style was a little heavy handed. At Knowsley Road the area reserved for wheelchair users was just a few yards from the touchline at ground level. I once heard Goulding motivate a team-mate receiving treatment for an injury by shouting ‘get up, I need you.’ I can’t remember who the injured player was but I do recall that he got up fairly quickly afterwards.
Goulding could pass, had a kicking game capable of inducing nightmares on those like Graham on the wrong end of it, and was fearless in taking on the defensive line. Most of today’s sevens have one, maybe two of those qualities but very rarely do they have all of them.
Learning recently that Goulding has been diagnosed with early onset dementia at the age of 49 was shocking and sad. It seems surreal when I think of the then 24 year-old Goulding parading the Super League trophy around the ground after the title-sealing thrashing of Warrington in ‘96. Grand Finals are here to stay because of what they bring from a broadcaster’s perspective, but the party atmosphere inside the old ground that day was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced at Old Trafford. Goulding’s diagnosis will be jarring for anyone there that day and who idolised him during those early years of Super League. There are significant challenges ahead for Goulding as far as his health is concerned, and the game itself is set to be impacted by it also.
Along with nine other ex-professionals Goulding intends to sue the Rugby Football League for negligence. The group are questioning whether enough was done to protect them during their playing careers. It follows a similar action taken by a group of rugby union players and a 2011 case in American Football in which the NFL agreed a $1bn settlement with a group of former pros.
Goulding has spoken of the occasions on which he was allowed to play within a few days of being knocked out and sustaining a concussion. The most recent of these occurred in 2002 when he was playing at Huddersfield for Leigh. The rules around concussion have tightened considerably in the intervening years, but it’s clear that Goulding and his fellow plaintiffs feel that more could have been done 19 years ago and even further back than that.
The prospect of a lawsuit has opened the debate on what kind of protection players should reasonably expect. What further changes - if any - can be made to the game to make it safer? There are a substantial number of fans in the game who are of the opinion that it has gone as far as it can. Players now undergo cognitive tests at the start of each season to establish a base level of function. If they receive a head knock during a game which the medical staff deem significant then they are required to leave the field for a 15-minute head injury assessment. If the medical staff are unsatisfied with the results of that assessment then the player is ruled out not only for the rest of that game but for a seven-day period afterwards. If the current rules are being followed correctly then it is no longer possible for a player to be thrown back in just a few days after being knocked out as Goulding experienced. The game has moved on, though sadly it has done so too slowly to protect the former Great Britain half.
Along with the more rigorous medical checks on players receiving blows to the head, the rules have also changed to deal more firmly with the players inflicting those blows. Any direct contact to the head of an opponent now results in a yellow card. If there is excessive force in the opinion of the referee then that yellow card turns red. This provokes all manner of yelping and barking with contempt among fans who argue that the game has gone ‘soft’ as a result. This clamour for the preservation of the violence in the game has grown louder now that the game’s lawmakers have adopted a policy of strict liability. It now seems that where there is direct contact with the head of an opponent intent is irrelevant. The game has decided that players have a duty of care to each other. If you hit somebody in the head you will walk whether you meant to do it or not.
This does sanitise the game to an extent but the motives behind it seem honourable enough. We must future proof the game. If it becomes associated with degenerative conditions like Goulding’s dementia or motor neurone disease with which Rob Burrow now fights every day then parents are not going to want to let their children take up the sport. If kids are not playing rugby league then you don’t have to have Darwin’s grasp on evolution and development to know that we won’t have a game at all for very long. Yet there is a good argument that strict liability does not eliminate direct head contact. A player has to make a tackle and sometimes a slip here or a step there can mean contact with the head before either ball carrier or defender have even realised it. A defender is not going to duck out of a tackle just because he or she might get sent off should an accident happen. If players ever do start thinking like that then we won’t have much of a spectacle.
There are maybe things that can be done outside the match day itself which might reduce risk, especially at junior level where some sports are already making changes. The amount of full contact in training sessions can be reduced, and the length of time that a player is required to be inactive following a concussion can be increased.
Some would go so far as too eliminate tackling altogether for children under a certain age. Yet although tag rugby would allow kids to develop good handling skills and other basic fundamentals there is an argument that if you are not teaching a child how to tackle correctly then he or she is not going to be able to do it very well when they reach adulthood. That in turn arguably increases the risk of not only head injuries and concussions and their associated conditions but also of life changing spinal injuries.
I’m forever banging on about how disability is not the end of the world and how we should not use words like ‘stricken’ to describe Mose Masoe after his injury. The inspiration porn with which Masoe has to deal on a daily basis makes me feel more than a bit queasy. Neither he nor I are ‘an inspiration’ for getting out of bed each day. But at the same time life changing spinal injuries are not the proverbial bed of roses and not something we want to be subjecting people to if it can be avoided.
We could make all of the changes discussed here and more and it would still not help Goulding or any of the 10 launching their action. Sadly the damage is done for them. Yet if they are to be successful with their suit they will likely need to prove that the RFL and or the clubs they represented as players could have done more to protect them. Was enough known about concussion and degenerative neurological conditions back then for the measures which are in place now to be introduced?
That is probably going to be difficult to prove which for the game’s sake is just as well. A settlement that is even a fraction of the one agreed upon by the NFL in 2011 could wipe out the game financially. I can’t begin to understand what Goulding and the others are going through but what I do know about the great man is that he loves the game. Does he really want to punish the RFL to the extent that it stumbles into real financial peril? No amount of money will reverse his condition but at the same time I can understand why he wants those who he feels are responsible to be held accountable to some degree. Perhaps he is not seeking an amount that will have an apocalyptic effect on the game.
Some might settle for that kind of outcome. Others will take the view that Goulding and the other nine plaintiffs have no case. Some would argue that as adults we all have free will and can choose whether or not we engage in risky activities. Nobody who has made it to a professional level in rugby league - not least the bloke who helped launch what has turned into something of a dynasty at Saints over the last quarter of a century - can reasonably claim that they were not aware that the game is a fairly dangerous pursuit. There is an argument that they knew what they were getting into, but did they? Did they know that multiple concussions could be linked to dementia? Even now arguments rage about how strong the link is. Could Goulding not have developed dementia without playing a single game of rugby league? Tragically a large number of people do. Whether or not he would have is therefore unanswerable.
Irrespective of the outcome of this action I hope that science finds some way of slowing down Goulding’s condition. I hope he will always remember a sunny Bank Holiday at Knowsley Road in August 1996 when I was within touching distance of peak Goulding as he showed off our first championship trophy in 21 years. Or a bright day at Wembley in April that same year when Goulding’s aerial assault transformed a Challenge Cup final that was slipping away.
I hope I never forget either.
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