Real shame outstanding player when fit but hes an outstanding kid and will be successful in life whatever he does. His long term health has to be the priority hopefully he makes a full recovery.

I'm not convinced it's still down to the head injury sustained. The club have been relatively very quiet about everything considering the context. He was always the standout player from his days at Churwell to being voted player of the year at service area level year after year. Wish him all the best with his future.

It very much is to do with the head issues.

I imagine there's a chance the club are being silent because this whole thing may be being bogged down in litigation.

what an odd opinion.

Litigation over what?

Firstly I didn’t see the interview or show but if Stevie ward is of the opinion he has sustained a serious brain injury I would suggest he is somewhat misguided. Serious brain injuries are indeed serious and normally have huge cognitive, emotional and physical consequences. I am not saying he doesn’t have those but some context is important.



Stevie ward appears to have ongoing consequences of concussion potentially repeated concussions which have caused some relatively minor brain injury. This is a fairly new area in terms of concussion protocol and HIA.



Steve ward did not suffer a prolonged period of unconsciousness (more than 5-10 mins) I doubt he has any prolonged post traumatic amnesia although he could have some, he didn’t suffer a skull fracture from what was reported and I would be incredibly surprised if he had any evidence of neuroradiological abnormality including subdural haematoma, cerebral contusion and or hemorrhagic contusion. Those are some of the basic tools for classification under the Mayo classification criteria for head injury.



The idea there would be some kind of litigation baffles me. Litigation over what? That the club didn’t follow HiA procedure? My recall was he had a head bang, went off and didn’t return and didn’t play again.



Potentially the poor lad has long lasting impact from a concussive event, it can happen but it doesn’t happen often. Just think some perspective over him suffering some kind of major brain injury is a bit disrespectful to those who have or have family members who have suffered serious brain injuries.



All in all very sad if he is going to retire due to this, but the idea there will be some kind of litigation seems absolutely ridiculous to me.

I'm not saying there is or isn't but if an employee suffers significant loss of both livelihood and quality of life due to an incident at work that's often the direction things go.

Only if the employer has been negligent. I imagine he will have received full pay whilst not playing, had access to very high level private medical assistance and investigations. If he could show that the club knew he was vulnerable or sent him back on or suggested he played again when still complaining of an issue then maybe that would be negligent. Playing rugby, suffering a concussion, failing return to play protocol and then not playing again is as far as I can see not negligent in any way.

It's a shame we aren't insured for the loss of such a valuable asset.

It's a shame that Stevie, a young lad with a shed load of ability and who has already had his share of injuries and mental health battles, looks to have played his last game

I thought that was obvious.

.

What's the problem?

Whats happened?