Barrie McDermott reveals his strong stance on legal case against RFL over injuries

This week there has been a lot of talk about the legal case against the RFL and other sports organisations by former players over head injuries which has been taken to the High Court this week.

It was confirmed that Nick Fozzard had joined the now 378 strong group.

In light of this on the Eddie and Stevo podcast, Barrie McDermott was asked whether he regrets playing.

He said: “Not one second and I take issue with the lads that are putting those cases together.

“I have to be careful what I say here because there will be genuine cases within those and I’ve met recently an ex-coach of mine, who unfortunately has got dementia and he’s only in his early sixties and he played the game very tough.

“So there are ramifications and I think that’s the game that we play, it is a brutal game, it can be a violent game or used to be.

“I loved every second of it and my body is smashed to bits, there isn’t anybody putting cases forward for new knees, new shoulders, bulging discs and all those other things. The mind seems to supersede everything which probably is right.”

Ultimately, McDermott stands against the legal case being made against the sport:

“I don’t agree with what they’re doing as a whole because I think we’re on that sort of tipping point constantly. It’s a sport that doesn’t have a massive amount of money in the back.

“If you were to say to me ‘what would you do and how would solve a lot of these issues’, it wouldn’t be tinkering with the game it would be the aftercare.

“I will say this, the caveat is that I knew what I was doing and I accepted the risk, I accepted the consequences of what we were doing. I’m unhappy with the ramifications of what this court case will do because it shuts the door on everybody else.

“In and amongst that there will be some cases that are tragic and they do need our support, that’s what I’m talking about in putting something around the players that do need help and support that will allow them to live the right way for the rest of what they’ve got left.”