HEAR ME NOW!

Scared you a lil’ bit? Good. As with all blog posts, authors need to GRAB the reader’s attention, and today I’m going to show how the already aggressive rugger displays voice in blogs. “Voice,” simply, is the means that authors convey their personality through their text by their use of diction, phrasing, and content. All authors have voice, some more amusing than others, but no two are ever the same.

Tim O’Connor is barrister, and now that his playing days are over, he fills this void with his blog title simply, “Rugby Law” where he explores rugby and the laws that govern it. After reading his posts, it is clear that Tim did have rugby experience and that I am not the first to question the safety of rugby, especially in the scrums.

He first lets readers know about the amount of pressure first-row players endure during a scrum by comparing it to having cars fall on your shoulders.

“Take a small car - this being rugby, let's say a French one, a Citroen C4. In fact, take two. Suspend one 15 centimetres - six inches - over each of your shoulders.

Now let them drop.

That's what it is each member for a professional front row to take the hit of a modern scrum. If you're an international hooker, since hookers take a bit more of the hit, you're talking a family saloon like a C5, onto each shoulder. 3kN of an impact. Ten or fifteen times a game.”

With this, he emphasizes how dangerous the scrum can be, especially for hookers, and that though it is overlooked, the dangers can be as dangerous as a car falling on someone with 3kN of force.  He continues to do this by his concise, simple statements that help convey that there is nothing complex about the issue at hand. He states simply,

“The net result has been more dangerous scrums, more resets, worse scrummaging and more dangerous scrummaging: bad rugby, and dangerous rugby…And there is no excuse for it.”

His passion is clear, and he gives authority to himself by stating that he was a prop himself and pulls in the sympathy of the audience by his anecdote where he had to hold his hooker’s neck immobile after a bad scrum. Rugby is important to him, being a third-generation prop, but the issue of safety is so controversial that he who grew up with rugby is now questioning it and the IRB.

In another post, his angry voice towards the IRB is again heard in “Concussion – Fatality.” Short and to the point, he tells reader about a 14-year old boy that died on the pitch because he was left alone after being concussed for a second time.

“I've written before, on this blog and elsewhere, about the failure to deal properly with concussion,” he states, exemplifying his dismay that there are cases where concussions still go untreated, and because he refuses to comment until the verdict on the case is made, it shows his own anguish on the event and perhaps his own realization that this is a common event and ultimately up to the courts as to what will happen, not the players or community.

Between these two blog posts, Tim shows himself to be a lover of the game of rugby, but like myself, cannot bear to see players continue to be injured by laws meant to promote player safety with the IRB sitting idly aside, watching. His passion is evident by his anecdotal stories and his anger clear towards the IRB. Like me, he understands that change must start with them, and until the IRB amends its law, players are subjected the rules of the game, no matter how dangerous.