James McManus’s legal action against Knights over concussion shines light on NRL’s unclear policy
JAMES McManus’s legal action against the Newcastle Knights over concussion shines a light on the NRL’s unclear player welfare policies. LIVE BLOG with Paul Kent from 1pm.
Opinion
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LIKE every good soap opera, of which the NRL remains the greatest on Australian television, two conversations are always taking place.
The first is for public consumption, light on drama but enough to keep it ticking over week after week. The second, more vital conversation, is always where it’s at.
The NRL season kicks off in two days and the backdrop to the story is former Newcastle winger James McManus launching legal action against the Knights for their handling of the concussions that led to his retirement.
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Knights chairman Brian McGuigan has spoken calmly about the threat, comfortable the club has not acted immorally or illegally.
The club acted on advice of the doctor. If the doc said the player was fit to return he returned. If not, he didn’t.
Yet McManus has promised there will be “groundbreaking things” revealed in court.
What we know is this:
McManus was forced to retire after a series of concussions left him battling depression. His moods swung like Tarzan, constant headaches filled his brain. He grew aggressive. Noise and light irritated him.
Halfway through a sentence words began appearing where they shouldn’t have.
It was announced over the weekend that McManus is suing the Newcastle Knights for his brain injury in the Supreme Court. The case, to be mentioned on March 17, was immediately likened to recent lawsuits settled in the US when 4500 former players brought a class action against the NFL that ended in a billion dollar-plus payout.
It would be careless to say the NRL is headed the same way.
The NFL essentially came unstuck when mounting medical evidence revealed a new brain injury and its effects, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The NFL at first denied its existence and then began a campaign to discredit the evidence emerging through its own funded research.
Here in Australia, the NRL never denied the medical evidence.
As soon as it became compelling enough the NRL acted, introducing sideline concussion tests and banning players from returning if they failed a cognitive test in the dressing sheds.
Afer too many clubs and coaches flirted with the semantics, the NRL beefed up the standards again.
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Significantly, McManus is not suing the NRL like they did in the NFL, but his club. But the game is not out of danger yet.
While doctors understand their duty of care not everybody takes it so seriously. The dirty little secret in the game is that some coaches are still coaching players to disguise their injuries.
Players will get stung and stumble and somewhere in their foggy state they maintain the presence of mind to clutch a knee or a shoulder as a diversionary tactic. It wasn’t a head knock, they are showing, but a corked thigh, a shoulder stinger.
The doctor might not even be aware.
It is a tactic towards winning, a sad reminder that sometimes, some people lose perspective. They put winning ahead of long term welfare.
And it works while everybody is on the secret, denying anything more serious will ever take place.
Yet what will happen one day in the future when a player, like McManus, feels his brain is no longer functioning like it should and he remembers back to all those times his coach told him to clutch his shoulder and soldier on?
Does he send his lawyers past the club and doctor and go straight for the coach? Or the assistant coach manning the sideline?
There is no suggestion the Knights acted this way with McManus. Nobody knows yet what the nature of his “groundbreaking” evidence is. It could be anything.
That’s the key, though. What does he know and who doesn’t want it to come out? McManus’s action is a game changer.
Nothing is simple. Like the rugby league soap opera, often two conversations also take place in court. What happens and what can be proven.
Originally published as James McManus’s legal action against Knights over concussion shines light on NRL’s unclear policy
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