‘Jones scare will devastate the game’

Ryan Jones’ admission that he may be suffering from a degenerative brain condition today prompts a medical expert to warn: “This is absolutely devastating for rugby.”

Professor John Fairclough, who has spent a lifetime dealing with rugby injuries, spells out the impact of the former Wales Grand Slam captain’s predicament in graphic terms.

“It will leave every mother thinking: ‘That could be my son’,” he tells The Rugby Paper. “They would have seen Ryan running out as captain of Wales and winning the Grand Slam and they’d all have thought: ‘That’s what I’d want for a son of mine’.

“Those same mothers will have read about Ryan’s diagnosis and now they’ll be thinking: ‘That’s definitely not what I want for my son’.”

Jones is taking legal action against the game’s governing bodies, a move which may raise questions over an episode involving Wales and the Lions. Captaining Wales against the USA in Chicago in June 2009, Jones needed extensive treatment after a blow to the head.

Then, a few days later, he flew to join the Lions in South Africa where medical experts told him he could not play.

That left the Lions no option but to send him home the next day, June 12 and Jones to wonder how he had become the victim of what appeared to be a wild goose chase.

“I am very disappointed that on medical grounds I have been told I am not fit enough to play an active role on the tour,” he said at the time. “I was looking forward to getting involved with the rest of the lads but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

“It’s been an up and down year for me in many ways. I feel OK at present but obviously I have to listen to the neurosurgeon’s advice in terms of my health and to ensure I make a full recovery.”

Professor Fairclough (above) and other members of the lobby group Progressive Rugby, among them England World Cup-winner Kyran Bracken and former Ireland fullback Dr Barry O’Driscoll, are campaigning for a minimum recovery from brain injuries to be raised to 21 days.

They say World Rugby’s recent increase from six days to 12 is ‘a step in the right direction but nowhere near enough.’ Their members will be alarmed to learn of Jones being flown from one continent to another in what appeared to have been a concussed state.

Jones played the last of 78 Tests for Wales and the Lions in 2013.

He made his last appearance two years later, for Bristol Bears in their losing Championship play-off final against Worcester. He fears not just for his future but rugby’s.

As he told the Sunday Times: “It is walking headlong with its eyes closed into a catastrophic situation.”