Heads, you lose: The former Wales hardman tackling rugby's leadership
PLUS: A bumper edition of That Week That Was and the Weekend That Will Be
Alix Popham is a man in a hurry.
The former Wales loose forward has little time for procrastinators. There’s an urgency to everything he does.
One of the original signatories to a lawsuit against World Rugby that could have enormous ramifications for the sport, Popham’s post-career legacy promises to outweigh his 33-test career.
Popham is in a rush to see World Rugby admit that it let its most important commodity, the players, down by not being honest about the risks the sport carried; he wants fundamental changes to the way the game is coached; he wants the medical science community to stop dancing around the edges and to reach consensus on the link between rugby and brain disease; he wants players to be cared for.
He wants it now.
This haste is in stark contrast to the way he approaches his personal health where the aim is to slow everything down; to arrest the progress of a disease that will eventually rob him of lucidity.
Popham, who turns 42 this weekend, was diagnosed with early onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) last year, the culmination of a disorienting year in which he thought he “was going mad”.
In the middle of 2019, Popham’s wife Mel started noticing he was mixing up his words, among the most classic symptoms of a deep-lying state of confusion.
“I was drifting off in the middle of conversations and my ability to communicate in group situations was poor,” he says, noting that he couldn’t take in new information if there was any competing noise.
He came close to burning his house down when he turned the stove on and forgot about it but it was an incident on his bike that forced him to confront his condition.
“I got hopelessly lost on a bike ride I had done 100 times before.”
The distress of that situation saw him start a process that would end up with brain scans, his diagnosis and his subsequent involvement in a groundbreaking lawsuit against World Rugby (and the Rugby Football Union and Wales Rugby).
Popham won’t talk about the suit other than to say there are now more than 200 players involved and more than 70 of them had received similar diagnoses to him and the rest were in the process of being tested or awaiting results.
He will talk, however, about the strange relief of the diagnosis, when MRI and DTI scans showed significant deterioration of his brain.
“It’s weird because I didn’t know if I was going mad. You have all these feelings so it was good to have an answer as to what was happening. Even though it was a shit answer, it was an answer.”
The diagnosis came in a time of Covid and he was cut off from his family, so “difficult” Zoom calls with his wife and daughters followed. They were forced to confront the fact that in all probability he had a limited time to make a positive impact.
Then he got busy.
“I realised there was nothing out there for people like me so my wife and I started Head for Change,” he says, referencing the charitable foundation that supports ex-rugby and football players who are affected by neurodegenerative disease.
“I’m a glass half full guy, so I decided to take positive steps forward.”
He is a founder member of Progressive Rugby, a non-profit lobby group that includes stakeholders from all areas of the game, which demands better protection for players to ensure the game continues to thrive.
He refuses to run from his condition. He devours literature on the subject. He understands the science behind it and counts some of the foremost minds on the subject among his close contacts. He has an entrenched cynicism, possibly even disdain, towards those he believes are stalling progress by not conceding there is a causal link between rugby and degenerative brain disease.
It was Popham who reached out to me initially, wanting to know the status of a research project in New Zealand similar to Dr Willie Stewart’s axis-shaking FIELD study that determined that professional footballers had an approximately three-and-a-half-fold higher rate of death due to neurodegenerative disease than expected. Drilling down further, the rates were shown to differ between playing position and career length, but not by the era they played.
New Zealand Rugby has partnered with Statistics NZ to try to determine whether the lasting impacts of concussions while playing rugby increase the risk of dementia. Popham was worried that the project had been shelved and every couple of days a message would land: “Any word yet on that study?”
Inquiries by The Bounce to NZR have determined that the work, led by Dr Ken Quarrie, has been slowed due to the pandemic, but it is very much alive.
I ask Popham if he’s angry? If he thinks rugby is moving at a glacial pace and, if so, whether he thinks it is deliberate?
He mulls this for a time before offering an unconvincing: “No.”
“I mean, how much research do you need?” he continues. “There’s research that’s been out there and verified 100 percent. We were the first group of guinea pigs in professional rugby but there was research before us and there’s been more since.”
One of the key planks of the lawsuit is likely to be that after Gronwall and Wrightson wrote in The Lancet of “the cumulative effect of concussion” in 1975, World Rugby, then the IRB, had a duty of care to warn its players and coaches about the specific long-term risks involved, rather than just stand players down for three weeks following a concussive injury.
A recent biomarker study commissioned by the Drake Foundation and carried out by Imperial College London found that slightly less than a quarter of elite adult rugby players had changes in their brain structure and 50 percent showed an unexpected reduction in brain volume.
“It’s not a very good selling point to mums and dads,” Popham deadpans, referencing the recent comments of former England centre and long-time rugby administrator Simon Halliday, who said his children did not play rugby due to safety concerns.
“Get all the research out there now. Make it all easily available and then leave it up to personal choice.”
While there is no silver bullet, Popham said the move to vastly reduced full-contact training - 15 minutes per week - was not only screamingly obvious but easy to implement. It disturbs him that it will be “advisory” rather than “mandatory”.
“The NFL did it 11 years ago and guess what? There’s more concussions in rugby than American football. We have to err on the side of caution.”
Not making non-contact training mandatory, Popham says, is just another example of administrators procrastinating.
He has no time for that.
POPHAM’S professional career spanned four clubs and three countries, starting with his hometown Newport, before stints at Leeds, Llanelli and Brive, in France.
When he started with Newport they were bad, a far cry from the side that beat the powerful 1963 All Blacks 3-0 at a windswept Rodney Parade.
“I was 18 and stayed there for four years. My first couple of years I think I played 31 games and lost 30 of them. I can’t remember much of it. I don’t remember the stadiums or the scorelines, but I know it was tough. I was a young No8 playing with a scrum that always went backwards.”
Popham spent his early days picking himself off the ground after spending all day tackling but all of a sudden money started flowing into the club. Shane Howarth joined; so did Springboks Franco Smith, Gary Teichmann and Adrian Garvey; Australian Matt Pini and All Black Ofisa Tonu’u soon made their way to Rodney Parade before the club became a feeder to the Newport Gwent Dragons when rugby in Wales went regional.
Popham was soon gone, to Leeds Tykes, playing union in a fiercely league town and winning the Powergen Cup in the process.
From there it was back to Wales and the Llanelli Scarlets, before ending his career with four seasons in the south of France at Brive. His career ended with a snapped triceps muscle but it was the wear and tear on his brain from an estimated 100,000 sub-concussive hits that would continue to haunt him.
“Rugby was my life from the age of four,” he says, noting that there was no transition from touch to tackle given he started with full contact from day one.”
That was, bluntly, Popham’s calling card. He was a tough, abrasive loosie. Subtlety didn’t form a big part of his armoury. His physicality caught the eye of the national selectors and he was part of Steve Hansen’s World Cup squad in 2003 - a tenure he looks back with respect rather than fondness.
“He was a very strict coach. Discipline was at the top of the list on and off the training pitch. With [now-Blues CEO] Andrew Hore as fitness coach, Popham said he became a “much better” player.
“I wouldn’t say it was enjoyable, but it was what Wales needed at the time,” he says.
It was Wales that gave him his greatest moment, or at least it would have been if he could remember it. Playing South Africa at Pretoria in 2004, the teams were introduced to Nelson Mandela before kickoff.
Here’s how the Guardian reported what happened next.
Coach Mike Ruddock went into the match without 14 first-choice players left back in Wales, and lost the services of lock Brent Cockbain and No8 Michael Owen in the past week.
The promising Dragons back-row forward was replaced by Leeds Tykes’ Alix Popham and the Wales tour was summed up when Popham was knocked out in the 52nd minute. For a while there was concern that he’d swallowed his tongue, but he was later diagnosed with concussion and kept overnight in hospital in Pretoria.
“I was given one job that day and that was to smash [legendary flanker] Schalk Burger at every opportunity. I met Mandela and woke up in hospital and can’t remember anything about the game.”
There was another time he woke up in the dressing sheds after a match missing his two front teeth but it’s not the big blows he looks back at now with regret at. It’s the training.
“I was seeing stars every training session. All I had was smelling salts but I’d carry on because my whole game was based around being physical.”
It’s why he will keep pushing, pushing, pushing to keep contact out of training.
“There are so many things that could happen tomorrow that would help players today and that is the big one.”
It is important to note that Popham retains a deep love for the sport. He believes the benefits of rugby far outweigh the negatives and while he would have looked after himself differently during his career had he been armed with more knowledge, he still would have played.
He’s been heartened by the support he’s received from his peers, all of whom know that he’s not anti-rugby, just anti-illness.
“Ninety-nine-point-nine of the responses have been positive,” he says. “There was one ridiculous comment from [former Scotland international] Jim Hamilton on Twitter who said something like ‘this was what we signed up for’... but apart from that everybody has been really supportive.”
It’s too late to help Popham and players from his generation. While he didn’t talk about the court case, he can still get to the nub of it in a single, devastating quote.
“We expected our bodies to be in bits but we were never informed our brains could be damaged when our careers were over.”
They never signed up for that.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
ON a distantly related subject, excuse the cynic in me for thinking how remarkably nimble World Rugby was when changing its laws to mitigate the risk of skinned knees.
BEING a man of the Naki, I feel a measure of sympathy for Neil Barnes’ plight, and his tirade against NZR for ditching promotion-relegation in the Bunnings Cup this year was remarkable for both its length and the breaking of the suck-it-up-and-stay-silent code that permeates all levels of rugby in this country.
Outside the province, you suspect few are going to cry rivers for Barnes given the times and travails many are living through, particularly in Auckland.
However, just because Barnes’ general awareness and priorities appear skewed, it doesn’t mean he’s necessarily wrong. There are a couple of things worth digging into, most particularly the overdue move back to a one-division competition.
The two-division format hasn’t worked. It was a decent attempt to prevent ridiculous mismatches between the rich and poor and a way of giving playoff footy to eight teams, but it’s just a confusing mess that nobody has really bought into, with people still confused as to why some Premiership teams play some Championship teams some years and not others. Just ditch it and give planning certainty to all 14 semi-professional unions about what they’ll be playing for every year. By all means implement a conference system to cut down on costs and to fit the window, but having two tiers in the third tier of pro rugby has, on reflection, been a fail.
But… if NZR insists on having a Premiership-Championship split in 2022, have an 8-6 split for a single season to accommodate promotion. It is only right and proper that no team is relegated due to the circumstances this season, but why ditch promotion? There is a remarkably simple solution: the Premiership has eight teams with the normal semifinal-final playoffs, while the Championship will have six, with the top team after round robin going straight through to the final and teams two and three playing off to meet them.
If, in 2023, NZR still wants a two-tiered NPC, then the two bottom teams in the Premiership will be relegated to be replaced by the Championship winner, thus restoring the seven-seven split.
It’s not, as fine loose forward-turned-broadcaster Willie Lose once said, rocket surgery.
This topic, plus a few others including the launch of Matatū, were discussed on SENZ’s Thursday morning panel with myself, Marc Hinton and host Ian Smith.
ONE of the weirdest ongoing sagas is the vaccination situation with one of the NBA’s brightest lights, Kyrie Irving. The brilliant point guard is a pivotal part of the Brooklyn Nets package assembled by general manager Sean Marks, a Kiwi. Irving, however, has a complicated history, having been involved in awkward team dynamics at Cleveland Cavaliers, where he chafed against LeBron James’ leadership, and the Boston Celtics where as team leader he alienated his younger followers. Here he is jeopardising a season where most pundits believe Brooklyn were title favourites, while leaving about $17 million on the table because he won’t be able to train or play in New York, where professional athletes must be vaccinated to play.
Irving is one strange cat but his “I’m not pro- or anti-vax, I’m just true to myself” stance is not his weirdest dalliance with science. His views on the shape of the planet are also interesting.
THERE was awful news out of Kenya this week, with the murder of Agnes Tirop, who finished fourth in the 5000m at the Tokyo Olympics recently and is the holder of the world record for the women-only 10k at 30m 01s. It has just been announced that her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, has been arrested.
THE woman who caused one of the worst crashes in Tour de France history could face jail time (though any sentence will likely be suspended) and a massive $25,000 fine as she heads to court to answer charges of endangering others. The unidentified 31 year old was holding a sign up and mugging for the cameras with her back turned to the peloton when she started a chain reaction that injured 26 riders. Put me down as someone who is uncomfortable with this desire for revenge.
Tour de France organisers have for years played with fire when it comes to crowd control, particularly at the top of mountain stages where riders are frequently jostled off their preferred line by limelight-seeking spectators. In some ways it makes the spectacle and no doubt helps them secure sponsors. As silly as this woman was, TdF organisers should be in the dock alongside her.
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
It hasn’t been a stellar IPL for New Zealand players, with perhaps only Lockie Ferguson enhancing his reputation, but what a year for the coaches! Of the four teams to make the playoffs, three were coached by New Zealanders and although Mike Hesson’s Royal Challengers Bangalore were tipped out, the Chennai Super kings and Kolkata Knight Riders will meet in the final.
That means Stephen Fleming versus Brendon McCullum, the former master and apprentice. Fleming’s consistency with Chennai has been remarkable and he’s won three IPL titles with the franchise since taking over in 2009.
McCullum’s rise has been more remarkable. The Knight Riders were awful during the first, ill-fated stage of the IPL but have been on fire since the event shifted to the UAE. One of the key moves McCullum made as coach was replacing popular local captain Dinesh Karthik with his friend Eoin Morgan. It just so happens that Morgan (average 11, strike rate 98) has been demonstrably the worst player at IPL 2021, but as a captain he has a happy knack of winning important games, lest we need reminding.
Chennai Super Kings v Kolkata Knight Riders, Dubai, overnight 3am, Sky Sport 3
Given Barnes’ spray (see above), it might be worth tuning in to see if his team matches the hype in the “Friesian Derby” against Waikato.
Waikato v Taranaki, Tauranga, tomorrow 2.05pm, Sky Sport 1
It’s not an amazing slate of matches as the Premier League returns from its annoying international break (which was very good for the All Whites, however), but all eyes will be on St James’ Park, where Newcastle starts its sportswashing project against Spurs.
Newcastle v Tottenham, St James’ Park, Monday 4.30am, Spark Sport
Also falling into the controversy-fallout realm is this juicy NFL match-up. Can the Raiders (3-2) block out the noise created by their departed coach, the distinctly unlikeable Jon Gruden, and defeat the Broncos, whose record also sits at 3-2?
Denver Broncos v Las Vegas Raiders, Denver, Monday 9.30am, Spark Sport
