\n<\/p>\n
The Rugby Football Union (RFU) has a free brain test available to any retired elite English player.<\/p>\n
I would have gone if I felt any symptoms after my playing career, but I never did.<\/p>\n
Deep down, I felt that I had been protected and that I was going to be OK. As a scrum-half, I played in a position that involved the least amount of contact.<\/p>\n
The documentary was the reason I went for a brain test, but ultimately it was not just about me as I want to make it the norm for other former players to follow.<\/p>\n
My brother Tom, who I played with during my professional career, is a perfect example of someone who should consider being tested, as he played in the front row.<\/p>\n
Lying under the MRI scanner and having my brain scanned brought nerves I was not expecting.<\/p>\n
No matter the growth and investment, there is always a risk in playing a contact sport.<\/p>\n
I was so glad to be calling my family to tell them that my results were clear.<\/p>\n
When you are living your dream, you do not tend to take a step back from the sport you love to consider how safe it really is.<\/p>\n
Having done all this, rugby has surpassed my interpretation of how much is going on.<\/p>\n
The sport really is pioneering in the way it is trying to look after players and do as much research as possible.<\/p>\n
It has also learnt from previous mistakes in terms of reducing contact in training and improving the HIA protocol, which is simply now too hard to cheat as the words are constantly changing.<\/p>\n
Going forward, we need to be looking at things like reducing the length of the season and further cuts to the amount of contact in training, and we will also always need to tread carefully between player responsibility and safety protocols. <\/p>\n
Rugby, I feel, is in an even safer place than I thought, but with more work to do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Rugby Football Union (RFU) has a free brain test available to any retired elite English player. I would have gone if I felt any symptoms after my playing career, but I never did. Deep down, I felt that I had been protected and that I was going to be OK. As a scrum-half, I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}