Nine seconds of silence.
When Ben Youngs asks whether Lewis Moody ever saw a risk to playing rugby, his former team-mate pauses. There is a lot to consider.
Moody played with Youngs at the highest level, won 71 England caps, toured with the British and Irish Lions and claimed domestic and European titles with a notoriously hard-edged Leicester side. Famed for full-throttle commitment, disregard for pain and a taste for collisions, he earned the nickname “Mad Dog.” In his playing days the only risk he worried about was leaving effort on the field.
Looking back at 47, he says it was never that simple. “I do think I was very aware of the risks rugby presented, when you go and smash yourself into another human being week in week out, day in day out,” he tells the BBC documentary Ben Youngs Investigates: How Safe Is Rugby? “I think I was acutely aware of the risks that come with injury and concussion, but I was happy that the reward and the joy of playing the sport far outweighed any of those. I enjoyed what I did so much that I was prepared to put up with that, and I would do again. I loved it… I absolutely loved it.”
Last year Moody was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), a degenerative muscle-wasting condition. Several rugby players have had the same news: rugby league legend Rob Burrow died in June 2024; Scotland international Doddie Weir and former Springbok Joost van der Westhuizen also died with the condition. Ed Slater, whose Leicester career overlapped Moody’s by a season, retired in July 2022 after tests showed he had MND.
There is no proven link between rugby and MND, though elite athletes overall are disproportionately affected. It is thought low oxygen levels during intense exercise may damage motor neurone cells, triggering disease in those susceptible through genetics or environmental factors. Despite that nuance, Moody recognises rugby has become linked with MND in the public mind. “I don’t get frustrated by it,” he says. “It is an easy assumption to make, because you have had a couple of high-profile rugby players with MND, that playing rugby makes you more likely to get MND. But that is not the truth. The only link and connection to MND and sport is around extreme exertion. There are research papers out there that talk about the connections. If you speak to the scientists or clinicians in this space, there are multiple reasons MND occurs. It’s not one thing.”
Moody retired 14 years ago, when the game was different. In September 2007, facing Tonga in a must-win Rugby World Cup pool match, he was rocked by a knee while attempting to charge down a kick and lay still. A medic helped him sit up, gave water and a sponge, and he rose to cheers. Shortly after half-time he was caught high as Nili Latu jumped into a tackle; slow-motion replay showed Moody’s head snapped back. He lay on his side, eyes closed, before eventually getting up and playing on. The next day, against medical advice, he joined team-mates at EuroDisney. After a ride his head was ringing and he spent the day looking after bags — “that was the first realisation that I needed to take concussion more seriously.”
That realisation mirrored a broader wake-up in sport. Unlike MND, there is a proven link between repeated blows to the head and brain injury. The NFL agreed a compensation settlement with former players over concussion-related brain injuries and payments have exceeded a billion dollars. A group of former rugby players are pursuing legal action against the game’s authorities, claiming more should have been done to protect them.
Elite rugby now arguably has the most stringent concussion measures in sport. Head contact is policed, the tackle height has been lowered, and players are sent off for tackles that would once have been tolerated. High-tech mouthguards can measure collision impacts and trigger touchline alerts. Independent matchday doctors review collisions on monitors. Stand-down periods after concussion are mandatory and guided by medical experts. “I think the game now is safer than it’s ever been,” Moody says, having been cleared of early onset dementia after a study at the University of Edinburgh.
But he has seen what team-mate Steve Thompson has gone through — Thompson, 47, has early onset dementia and is part of the legal action. “I roomed with ‘Thommo’ for years, and I’ve seen him and spent time with him since, and he’s genuinely struggling,” Moody says. “I’m glad those studies exist because there are plenty of lads that are struggling and do need support. The whole concussion campaign and movement at the time was really important in highlighting that there is a challenge and a problem that we have been ignoring for a long time. Hopefully, off the back of that, we’re now slightly more open-minded as a sport in embracing change and discomfort and challenging conversations, and we won’t be in a position where we’re sort of hiding from it again.”
Since going public with his diagnosis in October, Moody has been learning to live with uncertainty. “Without getting too ‘woo woo’, there is a Buddhist saying on a podcast that ‘yesterday’s dead, tomorrow isn’t born, there is only today’,” he says. “That helped me simplify how life with MND continues because there is no certainty around what the future looks like. I’ve met people that have been living with it for 12 years, 15 years and I’ve also met people who have it for six months and it’s really aggressive. Everything that I’ve experienced so far and have been told is that mine is slow-progressing. For me, it’s about being as normal as possible until things aren’t normal. And then it’s readjusting to that new normal. That may sound really difficult for people to understand, but it’s how I simplify living with it. It’s how I deal with it now and it’s good now, so that’s all that matters.”
Moody plans to use his platform to raise awareness of MND, following the example of Burrow, Weir and Slater, though he has not announced specific plans. “Doddie and Rob came into the MND world with far less information and not much hope,” he says. “I come in now because of those guys and I have almost been handed the baton, almost like ‘here you go’. I have been in conversation with Ed. With the messaging and awareness, I feel in a unique position where I can piggyback off the work they have all done and impact going forward in that MND space. I want to use my platform for as big an impact as I can.”
Details of organisations offering help and support with MND are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.
