Jack Anderson: World Rugby should take the AFL and NFL’s lead and mediate with past players to secure future

In 1928 two important scientific papers were published in American medical journals, and then duly ignored for decades.

The first in the Journal of the American Medical Association was by pathologist Harrison Martland, which opened with the line: “For some time, fight fans and promoters have recognized a peculiar condition occurring among prize fighters which, in ring parlance, they speak of as ‘punch drunk’.”