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Thu 30 Aug 2018 | 03:11
Sam Warburton opens up on fascinating aspects of premature retirement

5
Comments

Recently retired Sam Warburton has spoken about the huge shift in his life, after having had to give up playing the game aged just 29-years-old due to injury. He now joins the BT Sport Rugby Tonight crew, and last night in the season opener, spoke about hanging up his boots.

He touches on how much weight he's lost since stopping, where his priorities now lie and how many matches per year is optimal to ensure player welfare.

He also opened up about the void in his WhatsApp notifications.

MUST WATCH: So How Good Was Sam Warburton? Analysis reveals all

credit: bt sport

Posted By: Grant Constable

5 Comments

  • drg
    1:44 AM 06/09/2018

    Could create issues for teams/countries with a small player/fan base... Could set them back years too...

  • jimmy23
    12:01 PM 05/09/2018

    Would also encourage teams to actually develop a bit of depth. Think Leinster is a great example of a club that gets the most out of it's international players and developing other players. It can't be a coincidence that Leinster provides most of the players for the national squad and manages to be a strong team throughout the year.

  • 10stonenumber10
    11:38 AM 01/09/2018

    This is the reality of the sport. Hundreds retire each year on medical advice before the age of 30, rugby's equivalent of the 27 club is far bigger than Rock'n'Roll's. I only made it to 23. He is only a headline because he is Sam Warburton. No disrespect to the guy, it is interesting to see life after the sport, but what happens to the non-headline players, the ones who don't go and work for Sky or BT Sport or whatever?

  • pickay
    9:35 AM 31/08/2018

    I actually think the 25 games idea makes a lot of sense. I believe fielding more rested players could do even more to reduce the injury count overall than changing tackle laws etc.

    Everybody who has played the game knows that even if you can handle the individual knocks that you get in one game, the accumulation of knocks over a season can really wear you down. You start fresh and flashy, midway through the season you are technically still uninjured, but you still feel like a complete wreck already.
    Particularly when it comes to the prevalent discussion about reducing concussions, reducing the number of games should help a lot, as it is known that accumulating multiple knocks to the melon over a short period of time makes players more prone to future concussions, even from minor knocks.
    So I am with Sam on this one, fewer games would increase player welfare, but it's probably easier said than done.

  • drg
    11:14 PM 30/08/2018

    Issue I can see with 25 games a year is it going down the lines of what games count, we've seen it with bans where some bans seems to count for silly games, like pre season games or some sort of exhibition match or something like that.

    Then ofcourse could we get into the realms of only fielding weakened teams against weaker opposition and therefore never giving the weaker opposition the opportunities to compete on the top level stage..

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