Building a better future at the heart of the game

A RUNNING start?

You could say that. Niall Woods’ early days as chief executive of the Irish Rugby Union Players Association were tough, as he recalls.

“My first week in the role coincided with the suggestions that Connacht would be disbanded, so I was in three of the four provinces that week telling players of the consequences for them if Connacht was disbanded.

“I remember telling them it wouldn’t just be Connacht players losing their jobs — that some of them would go to other provinces. I said ‘Four or five of you, in this room, could lose your jobs because of what’s being planned for Connacht.’ When you were standing in the room, you could see the reaction of the players to that, and Connacht wasn’t disbanded in the end, which was great.”

At least he was busy. When that furore calmed down he was in unfamiliar waters.

“I remember sitting in the office, thinking ‘Jesus, what do I do?’” he laughs.

“At least a lot of the players at that time would have played against me or would have heard of me, which helped. But it was unknown territory, even though I’d been with the equivalent body in England.”

He leaves IRUPA in a better place, however.

“I think the association is treated with respect by the IRFU and the provinces but it could be taken just a little bit more seriously, maybe 20%. The fact that I, or IRUPA, can be seen as a troublemaker... it’s happened that a player will call or email me and say ‘is this how it should be done as per the player contracts’ — because we’d negotiate the standard player terms and conditions — and I’d answer that it isn’t.

“When I’d contact the province about that, then, it wouldn’t want me or the association involved, they’d start pressuring the player to stop getting IRUPA involved... it would be good if the provinces were to do things correctly, then I wouldn’t have to get involved. Those are isolated cases. There haven’t been too many of those over the years, but the more we can do for the players the better. That includes the medical side.”

The ‘medical side’ is something of a bugbear for Woods, unsurprisingly given the savage collisions now commonplace in professional rugby.

“There have been moves to get a head bin, as opposed to a blood bin, established for players who suffer head injuries, because otherwise it’ll come to a stage where someone is going to suffer an extremely serious injury. With a ‘head bin’ you could get a player assessed by an independent medic off the field as to whether he was fit to continue.”

Under Woods, IRUPA pushed the IRFU, the International Players Associations and the IRB to do something.

“Players’ careers are getting shorter. I don’t know how someone like Brian O’Driscoll is still playing and apart from front row forwards, you’re going to see it become rarer and rarer for players to last beyond the age of 32.

“There might be a fear that a ‘head bin’ would be abused, but even abuse in 10% of cases as opposed to 100% would be something. Then you have the severe bans handed down in the ‘Bloodgate’ controversy, which would make it less likely to have abuse of a ‘head bin’, though you couldn’t rule it out.”

Woods points to other problems down the road.

“It’s not just the damage they’re doing currently. We’re pushing the IRB to start researching what’s happening to players when they’re older. In a survey we did, we discovered that 40% of former professionals had stopped playing before they planned to, predominantly through injury. Of those, 72% are in regular pain or discomfort.

“I think the only way a player will listen to what’s likely to happen to him down the line — particularly with concussion, because there are no visible signs if you don’t have pains — is if someone says, ‘this is what has happened to a former player or boxer or NFL player — this is the damage you’re doing’.

He adds: “The primary care of the player has to be at the centre of this. If it doesn’t, then not only will there be a tragedy, there could be legal repercussions for a particular union and for the game in a particular country. You want to be seen to be doing as much as possible to stop that.”

He points to the pressure that can be put on players to compete, even when they’re hurt.

“Players will ultimately play and many play with a certain amount of injury,” says Woods.

“But sometimes smaller injuries lead to bigger ones. I played with players who had bonus structures in their contracts, they’d be on £1,000 per game if they played over a certain number of games or whatever, and some players are driven more by money than others. There’s an element of the players being at fault as well, but the decision (to play) has to be taken away from the players. You must have medics who won’t be influenced by coaches and who will make a decision based on the player’s welfare.”

Insurance was another box that had to be ticked off: “In my own case I had poor insurance advice — I played, got injured and it didn’t work out. I had four years afterwards of legal action and so on to get my insurance payment.

“Back in 2006, we launched an insurance product with Cork-based company Arachas, an income protection product. That’s something a lot of people would have but their chances of getting injured in their normal working day are low compared to a professional rugby player. With that product, injured players get paid 75% of wages until they’re 35, so if you’re 28, you know you have seven years on 75% of your wages for your mortgage or your car loan or whatever. What’s interesting is that the product has now gone to the UK — it was unique in world rugby and a lot of UK players are now taking it up.”

Now, after eight years, Woods feels he’s gone as far as he can with IRUPA. Not that he’ll be abandoning rugby.

“I’m starting my own business in sports marketing and management, and player agency is one element of it. I’ll be representing players individually as opposed to collectively, the way I’ve done over the last few years.”