It has been 10 years since I first spoke to Peter Robinson about the death of his young son Ben, almost to the day. Ben had died of brain swelling after being hit in the head twice in short succession during a school rugby game on 29 January 2011. Peter’s grief was raw, but he wanted to talk because he had a story he needed to tell. It was a story about Ben and what happened to him that day, but it was about more than that, too. It was a story about a sport Peter loved, but which he believed was failing to protect its players from the risks of brain injury.
Peter told me about the conversations he had had with administrators and politicians, he shared anecdotes and emails, showed me extracts and printouts from medical journals and websites. He told me about the sport’s inadequate education programmes and medical procedures, the five-minute pitch-side concussion assessment they were using in the professional game. He described a culture, one I recognised, in which players were lauded for making big hits and lionised for playing on after being wounded. In those days, people still argued that scrum caps were adequate protection, and described brain injuries as “head knocks” that could be “run off”.
