Duncan Casey: I'm hard to rattle but harrowing Thompson documentary was scary

'Being a hooker, I asked a neurologist if repeated bangs to the neck area in a scrum could cause it and he said it couldn’t be ruled out'

TEARAWAY: Duncan Casey is tackled by Ben Toolis and Glenn Bryce of Edinburgh in a PRO12 game at Thomond Park.

If you didn’t see BBC Two’s harrowing documentary on Steve Thompson’s battle with dementia this week, make the effort to watch it. 

I wrote about the former England front row in these pages two years ago and was already familiar with his story. It’s one thing reading words on a page or watching a two-minute interview for television, but it hits very differently when you get an up-close view of a guy in his early 40s struggling with basic elements of day-to-day life.