Eddie Jones says more needs to be done to look after players
‘We need to keep looking at how we make it safer’: Eddie Jones says more needs to be done to look after players as England coach adopts American method of ‘mime training’
- Rugby is under pressure to find solutions to its crisis around head injuries
- The sport is facing a legal class action from almost 200 players with dementia
- Eddie Jones has been sharing information with coaches from NFL team
England coach Eddie Jones has adopted ‘mime training’ from American sport in an attempt to improve player safety.
Rugby is under pressure to find solutions to its crisis around head injuries, with the sport facing a legal class action from almost 200 players with dementia.
Now England captain, Courtney Lawes, has been forced to withdraw from this week’s training camp in Jersey because of concussion.
Eddie jones says that more need more needs to be done to protect players in rugby
Dylan Hartley, the former England skipper, told The Mail on Sunday last week that administrators must find answers quickly, suggesting reducing the amounts of contact training.
Jones has been sharing information with coaches from American football team the Green Bay Packers. There has already been a heavy shift towards alternative training methods among sides in the National Football League and in basketball’s NBA.
‘We have been looking at a little bit of the stuff in America,’ Jones said. ‘I was talking to NFL and NBA where the amount of training time is being cut. One of the things they do in the NBA is mime training, where they are not allowed to talk. We are going to have a go at doing that. It is the eye contact, being able to understand each other’s body language.
‘Every sport is being modified in the physical load you can do. In cricket the fast bowlers don’t bowl as much, do they? There’s greater welfare care in every sport and so the amount of physical training you can do is being lessened. ’
Hartley called for mandatory brain scans to be introduced for players. ‘I see Dylan now and again and have a few informal conversations,’ said Jones. ‘Players have got to find their voice. As the game has gone professional, rugby players have maybe steered away from that a little bit.
Jones has adopted ‘mime training’ from American sport in an attempt to improve player safety
‘World Rugby has been very diligent. Rugby, because of the nature of the sport, is a physical collision game [and] we need to keep looking at how we make it safer; how we keep looking after the players better.’
Hartley says that he has turned down the offer to join the class action against the sport. However, the 36-year-old former hooker wants to see better aftercare for retired players — prompting a response from Mark Darbon, the chief executive at Hartley’s old club, Northampton.
Darbon called Hartley ‘a thoughtful guy’ with ‘some interesting ideas’. He added: ‘We’ve recently launched a benevolent fund across the club that supports past players in times of need. We’re actively raising funds to go into that pot, which is really exciting.
‘On the specific idea of treatment for ex-players, I think it’s a really interesting idea. We wrote to all of our ex-players recently, highlighting some of the services available to them, like brain health screenings in London, that are being orchestrated by the league and RFU. That’s really powerful.
‘Dylan’s message on whether there is anything we can do locally to support some of our ex-players that are nursing injuries is, I think, an interesting concept.
‘I’ve said to him we run a pretty tight ship here so we’d have to fit that in alongside everything else we do, but we’re certainly open minded to the idea.’
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