Shane Christie started young. Brain protection in rugby must too.
Shane Christie tragically died at 39. He started playing rugby aged 5 or 6. That is where this story begins. Not in the professional game. Not in a coroner’s hearing. Not in the pathology report that has now confirmed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
It begins in childhood, when exposure begins long before anyone knows which boy or girl will become a professional player or play into adulthood, or which one may carry greater genetic or metabolic vulnerability than the people around them can see. AP reported on 2 April 2026 that Coroner Ian Telford announced a post-mortem had found advanced CTE in Christie, who died in August 2025 after what was reported as a suspected suicide. His rugby life started in early childhood, as it does for many who play contact and collision sports [1, 2].
That matters because rugby and other sports still talk too often as if brain injury risk begins only when players reach the elite pathway. It does not. Exposure starts much earlier. The brain is damaged by impacts over time, not only by the one impact that leaves a player with a concussion or, in less than ten percent of cases, unconscious, but by the repeated, small-force sub-concussive impacts that never become a headline and present no concussion symptoms. Christie’s life and death are a brutal reminder that by the time the sport is debating long-term brain injury outcomes in current and retired professionals, almost all the years of brain injury exposure are already behind them [1, 3].
Rugby’s risk starts long before the professional game
New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Lancaster has said the organisation recognises “an association between repeated head impacts and CTE” and supports ongoing research into the long-term effects of repeated head knocks. Research should continue. It always will. But players of all levels and ages do not have the luxury of waiting for science to become rhetorically perfect before the sport chooses to act. Christie’s diagnosis is not a theoretical warning. It is a real one; and it arrives after years in which Christie himself believed rugby had damaged his brain and campaigned for greater recognition of CTE after the death of his friend Billy Guyton [1, 2].
This is where rugby’s language begins to fail. The governing instinct is still to present caution as responsibility. It is not. Not when caution becomes delay. Not when “more research is needed” becomes a reason to avoid stronger intervention now. The relevant question is not whether every scientific detail has been settled for all time. The relevant question is whether there is already enough evidence to justify reducing repeated head-impact burden and targeting the mechanisms most associated with brain injury. There is. A 2022 review in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology described rotational acceleration as a strong biomechanical predictor of traumatic brain injury, and broader reviews of repeated sub-concussive impacts have linked cumulative exposure to measurable adverse changes in brain health [4, 5].
That is the scientific point New Zealand rugby and too many parents, players, coaches, schools and clubs are still resisting: the brain rotates inside the skull during head impacts because of rotational forces present in every impact. This is associated with tearing of tiny blood vessels and brain cells, resulting, over time, in the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier and the creation of damaging neuro-inflammation. This is why the current conversation cannot remain trapped in the old language of surface protection alone. Cuts matter. Ears matter. Soft-tissue injury matters. But the real concern is brain injury, and that means the real focus has to be on reducing rotational force transmission to the brain. Christie’s confirmed high-stage CTE should push that conversation out of the margins and into the centre of rugby policy [4, 6].
Could brain protection have changed this outcome?
No one can say for certain whether reducing rotational-force transmission throughout Shane Christie’s playing life would have changed the final outcome. That is unknowable. No serious person should pretend otherwise. The coroner’s process is ongoing, and Christie’s official cause of death remains for that process to determine. But uncertainty about one individual counterfactual is not an argument for passivity. It is an argument for brain protection. We cannot know what would have happened had his brain been better protected from childhood and over the years of exposure. But we do know that repeated sub-concussive impacts and rotational forces are associated with CTE, and that targeting rotational force in frequent sub-concussions means targeting the mechanisms most associated with brain injury risk [1, 3, 4].
That is where brain protection differs from the old rugby headguard conversation. Rezon Halos® is designed to reduce rotational force transmission using patented Rotection® technology, reducing these forces by up to 61% in head impacts. No protective headgear can erase all risk, but a practical effort to reduce the force transmission most closely tied to brain injury mechanics is surely better than waiting. Waiting for symptoms, scans, lawsuits or post-mortem findings to tell us damage has already been done does nothing to reduce risk for today’s players [6].
The rugby headguard debate has been stuck in the wrong place
This is why the term rugby headguard matters, but also why it is not enough. Parents searching for a rugby headguard are usually trying to do the right thing. They are trying to protect a child. The problem is that traditional rugby headgear has not generally been framed as brain protection. World Rugby’s own guidance says headgear can help prevent soft-tissue injuries to the head and ears, but that it is not designed to protect against concussion or traumatic brain injury. That is an important statement, and it explains why the category itself needs to change [7].
The rugby headguard debate has therefore been stuck in the wrong place for too long. The real question is not whether a scrum cap protects the scalp. It is whether what players wear is designed to reduce the rotational forces that load the brain. That distinction matters especially in youth rugby, where players are accumulating years of contact exposure before anyone knows who will become elite, who will stop at school level, and who may pay a price much later. If the mechanism of brain injury is increasingly understood, then equipment design and safety standards should move toward that mechanism too [4, 7].
The purpose of brain protection now has to be reconsidered
Christie’s case is not the only reason rugby can no longer treat long-term neurological risk as marginal. The names are now familiar to the public: Lewis Moody, who revealed a motor neurone disease diagnosis in 2025; Doddie Weir, who died in 2022 after living with MND; Jason Hobson, who has said he was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, early-onset dementia and probable CTE; and Rob Burrow, a rugby league player whose death from MND in 2024 devastated the rugby league world. These are not the same diagnoses. They are not interchangeable. They do not prove one single causal story. But together they have destroyed the comfort of pretending that long-term brain and neurological risk in rugby is remote, abstract or politically inconvenient [8, 9, 10, 11].
New Zealand’s own research climate is also moving in the same direction. In September 2025, the University of Auckland reported findings from its rugby-dementia research showing a higher risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementias among former high-level male rugby players in New Zealand than among matched men in the general population. That does not make every former player destined for neuro-degenerative disease. It does make the “wait and see” position much harder to defend [12].
Responsibility now shifts to parents, players and coaches
If governing bodies continue to hedge, parents, players, coaches, clubs and schools do not have to. That is the real implication of Shane Christie’s death and diagnosis. You cannot know which child will become a professional athlete. You cannot know which child carries higher genetic and metabolic risk. You cannot know whose neurodegenerative consequences will emerge first, or latest, or never be fully recognised while they are still alive. But you can know that years of repeated sub-concussive head impacts are not neutral. You can know that rotational force matters. And you can know that starting brain protection young makes more sense than waiting until the damage has been inflicted. [1, 4, 5].
We know what happens when the brain is not protected. Shane Christie’s life, his suffering, and the pathology now made public should end any remaining comfort with delay. It is time to try protecting the brain; and to target the mechanisms that cause brain injury in sport. That responsibility no longer belongs only to coroners, researchers and governing bodies. It now sits with the very people making choices before the next season starts: parents, players, coaches, clubs and schools. Brain protection in rugby and wider contact and collision sports must start where exposure starts. In the youngest of players [1, 12].
“Having CTE and knowing lots of small-force sub-concussions caused it. I’m determined my boys protect their brain and wear Rezon Halos® to protect them!”
Jason Hobson, former England Rugby Union player
- Former rugby player Shane Christie had advanced CTE before dying in suspected suicide, coroner says. Associated Press. 2 April 2026.
- Local report on Shane Christie’s rugby beginnings. Marlborough App.
- Coverage of NZ Rugby response to Shane Christie CTE findings. 2 April 2026. The Spinoff.
- Rotational acceleration as a biomechanical predictor of traumatic brain injury. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. 2022.
- Review literature on subconcussive head impacts and cumulative brain changes.
- Halos® brain protection technology. Further Reading. Rezon
- Equipment, environment and emergency plan; headgear guidance. World Rugby.
- Former England rugby captain Lewis Moody reveals MND diagnosis. 6 October 2025. The Guardian.
- Doddie Weir obituary. 28 November 2022. The Guardian.
- Jason Hobson and Neil Clarke join concussion lawsuit against rugby authorities. Sky Sports.
- Rob Burrow obituary. The Guardian. 3 June 2024.
- Rugby and dementia link established. University of Auckland. 5 September 2025.
Author: Judith McMinn
