Its a very sad end to a promising career , however i think its the right call its one thing coming back from reconstructed shoulder ops & knee ligament ops vmbut you cant & never should gamble with brain injuries.
Personally id love to see him as the Clubs welfare officer & Acadamy Mentor.

Agreed. The boys a class act...

I wish him well for the future in any job he does. If he takes legal action against the club that is his choice and it’s for Leeds their lawyers and insurance to defend their position.
The problem with Rugby League and our sport in general is we don’t take the lead in areas of players welfare. Having watched a lots of Rugby league over the years the same principle of hurting players has always been a legal way of stopping players. The number of head high shots is unbelievable in our game today to the point, one day a tackle will result in a death. The number of head high tackles in the last game against Catalans was disgraceful, we have two linesmen, a referee a video Ref and they miss more than they see. It’s become a situation in Union that one headshot you get a yellow card two and you receive a red card plus a long ban. Certain Catalan players can only tackle over the shoulder and above, it needs changing there should be no room in our game for head high tackles. The only way to stop it is to send off players. They will soon get the message.
Head high shots are illegal yet they are as common today as they were years ago. It’s time to come down high on the culprits and send them off.
Maybe taking legal action against the clubs for damages may be hard and expensive, but taking action against the referees will be a lot easier especially when they have to apply the laws to the game, they have TV refs to help, so it’s time everyone got their act together for the long term health of the players

Shame for Stevie but he is very sensible to think about his health first.

Hopefully a good rest and then if he does get the itch again why not consider playing at amateur level and see where that takes him.

Hopefully with the demise of the game's reserves league other players return to their roots rather than lose their interest in the game.

I think professional clubs have the ideal opportunity to strengthen their links with their local clubs and keep fringe players fit at the same time by registering players if they so wish.

He's a decent looking lad. I wonder if a media career might be an option.

Taking legal action against referees? Please tell me you are joking?

The game in the late 70s and 80s was far worse than now. There arent many Tamati's or Boyds running around these days. Discipline is better now than in those days as is player welfare and the medical staff pitchside. The issue is the players are now bigger, stronger and more athletic and the 10m rule means the collisions have greater impact than in years gone by in my opinion.

The game is faster, the players are stronger and the collisions are at a faster pace and with more force.

I dont believe most head high tackles are malicious these days, i think most occur when a player is heading down or when a defender is beaten by the attackers footwork.

Not enough, even these days, is known about concussion and a lot more research needs doing into it but head high tackles will always happen in every game of RL thats just the nature of it.

Stevie Ward was a fantastic and hes a cracking kid. Its a real shame hes had to retire at such a young age. He was used wrongly in his early Leeds career which has lead to so many injuries over the years. Weve lost a real talent. I hope the club continue to support Stevie as much as possible to help him recover fully. Leeds has shown what a caring club it is with Rob so fingers crossed it helps Stevie moving forward.

You can't compare the impacts from the 70's and 80's with what we have seen in more recent history. SBW has done more damage in a single game with, at the time, legal shoulder charges than Boyd did in his entire career (two notable exceptions to that obviously). I think that there are far too many high shots in RL. Watching the NRL is like watching an advert for brain damage. It's not even disguised , start your "hit" just above the ball and then ride up and smack the guy in the head and get away with it, or roll the player in the tackle and ram his head into the ground with a forearm. All at full speed. At least they outlawed the shoulder charge which was at best "reckless" and at worst attempted GBH.

IMO there is still too much macho BS around RL. The game is about skill, the best moments in RL that I remember are all skill based. Of course we will hear the cries of "we don't want to watch touch", which is of course nonsense. We have constant fannying about with rules at the PTB when we really need to look at the tackle height. If this does not happen prepare for class action law suits against the game from former players. It will happen.

There are many on here who thing the shoulder charge should be brought back - and it legal for the ball carrier to lead with the shoulder which seems odd to say the least.

Big hits are great to see but these don't involve the head at all - Marc Glanville was a great exponent - when he tackled you you knew about it i.e. you were struggling to breath not out of it with concussion.

On Stevie Ward - this is a tragedy - but anyone playing second row with Gale with suffer like this - he sees them as expendable collateral in his managing of the game. Look at the last play where Ward got the second concussion. Oliver Holmes is another player who is completely beat up too as in Nathan Sykes.

The problem with RL players is not how they look it’s when they start to speak. You then realise that they are a little short on education.
Imagine LMS as a commentator, now that would be interesting

Baz and Tez get away with it.

Tbf they play up to it a hell of a lot as some kind of RL Hale & Pace.

Barrie is very eloquent when he wants to be (for a prop anyway

)
Terry just has that deep thick Lancastrian twang that is truly a marmite accent.

Both have benefited from media exposure and as I’ve always said, the best exponents for the game itself is the players. Always struck me when you’d see certain coaches etc really coming across poorly in a live interview yet remember Michael Maguire strolling round the old Trafford pitch after a GF win being totally at ease and giving a great, confident interview.

It can be learned. I remember when the boy Lineker started on the Beeb, he was awful. Now, he is a great presenter.

How i remember that he was bad really bad Now he is a man to be respected When he talks folk listen

See, I couldn’t disagree more - I’m not after ‘thugby league’ and I am thankful we have rid the game of most of the nasty, cheap late and high shots, leading with elbow etc that were a blight on the game in the 80’s and earlier - though we do appear to have replaced those with equally cheap, and for more dangerous wrestle moves, joint attacks, pressure on neck etc.... But the game I fell in love with as a kid in the mid-80’s included all that horrid stuff, and I still loved it. So whilst I want rid of that cheap rubbish, I want to keep some of the gladiatorial stuff like the fighting, the shoulder charges, the hatred.... it’s a part of the game I love - and those who watched the game pre-super league must have loved the game enough to still be fans today.

I’m very much of the opinion, you know the risks when you start playing, therefore you own the risk personally..... I’ve always played the game, my body is goosed as a result, but I always knew that would be the case - that’s my problem to deal with!

I've watched the game (as in physically gone to matches) since 1980. I remember the odd amusing punch up but I remember ball handling, pace, skill far more. My favourite players were fast and skillful -hence my username. Yes they were tough as well, everyone who plays RL is tough, it's a huge part of the game.

People don't know all the risks when they start playing, especially around TBI. That's patently obvious. I agree, players will tend to ignore the obvious risks, young people do. If someone had told me I would break my knee playing rugby and that I would spend 2 years practically on crutches and suffer pain with every step for the next 25 years (continuing and getting worse until I die) I would of course have carried on playing. And you can't make rugby "safe" and I wouldn't want to - it wouldn't be rugby. But it's also obvious that other contact sports are facing legal actions around brain injury caused by head impacts and it's a fact that there are far too many concussions in RL caused by head high tackles and unless that is dealt with by the people who run the game the sport may find itself in serious trouble.

One thing I think the sport could get rid of immediately is the practice of smashing kickers to the ground a split second after they have kicked the ball. It looks awful and adds nothing to the game. I'm not much of a fan of sticking up a high kick and then crunching a full back when practically defenceless either.

i don't like that either but if you outlaw that then you are allowing the kicker a free run to dummy and go through, with the defender standing off in the knowledge he basically can't commit due to the fact if he touches the kicker after the ball has gone then is he in deep water. it's a very difficult one to implement because the vast majority of them are only fractions from being good hits and always look ten times worse on super slow motion.

Yeah, I know. Ultimately I just like to see the creative players given more freedom and not fall victim to the McLorums of the game. I'd much rather watch Saints than Catalans. Totally get and respect your point though.

We coach players to slow down before the tackle, get their feet and head in the right place and make sure they don't get stepped. If you're in control then you can pull out of the tackle very late if needed.
A lot of problems like late hits on kickers are caused by bad technique in the first place.

Having played wing and full back I can tell you it's not much fun. When you know you are going to get smashed you feel very lonely. Luckily I was a lightweight so I sort of bent in the impact like rubber, bit like punching a feather.

Agreed, the players who are allegedly chasing down the kicker, are actually intimidating him (legal) by the knowledge of them simply running into him after the kick has gone (illegal).

Funny one this - because I think we both agree on the fundamental points - the game should protect players from foul play, particularly that involving the head or neck.... we are far too soft on deliberate and repeated attacks to the head/neck. A player like McIlorum should be penalised out of the game - with his rap sheet, any head contact, whether deliberate or reckless should result in a minimum of 150% of his previous sanction. So if he got 4 games last time, a minimum of 6 for his next offence, and then 9 for his next, 15 the next, 23 the next and so on - that would guarantee the repeat offenders fix their problem or they’ll be worthless to any club.

What I don’t think we should do is make the game powderpuff like removing shoulder charge entirely, stopping a bit of fisticuffs every now and then (O accept there is some risk here, but rarely have I ever seen a rugby fight end with any real damage) other than a shiner or cut.

Also, in terms of claims, the only way I could ever agree with a player making a claim is if the club forced the player to break head injury protocols, or were implementing training or match day techniques that they knew were dangerous. With the whole concussion stuff being very new, I don’t believe there will have been instances of this. To punish the sport for something they didn’t know about isn’t right - particularly when players enter contact sport knowing their is an inherent risk.

I think so too.

On the head injury stuff and law suits, it's more likely the governing bodies will be the target of major actions, unless as you rightly say an individual club has breeched safety protocols. The evidence on TBI and concussion has been available for some time and if the governing bodies have been presented with medical opinion and failed to act they could be seen as negligent. This is the case with Steve Thompson and others, they are suing the governing bodies and are gathering players for a class action suit. Something like that could potentially bankrupt RL.

Just on shoulder charges, I don't agree with the RU interpretation of the "armless tackle", that's stupid, but I gave up on shoulder charges when I saw the picture Luke Burgess posted showing his jaw split in half down the middle after that big dopey Cas **** hit him in the face with a "shoulder charge".

If you're going to ban contact with the head though it has to work both ways, any handoff by an attacking player /raised elbow that makes contact with the head should also be punished.

And this is the dangerous route it goes down when you start altering the fabric of the game - it starts getting silly. Absolutely clamp down on the illegal contact with the head - make it so that players daren’t swing their arm into a tackle (as they can’t control where it ends up if the player steps/slips etc), make it so they daren’t go for a blindside shoulder charge that could go wrong, coz if they get it wrong and collect the head, they’re out of the game for a LONG time. Make it so that they don’t get paid whilst banned, that’ll soon sort it. But don’t about with the fabric of the game to make it ‘safer’ - that will just ruin the sport IMO (and already is doing).

Look at boxing - boxing simply can’t survive if the doctors and solicitors have their way, infact I don’t think any contact sport can, because if you remove the head injuries, the solicitors will then go for arthritis.... it won’t end.... we have to be. If and strong enough to say ‘we know our sport comes with risk, if you want to play it, never mind earn a living from it, you do so knowing the risks’ and take our chances legally. Contracts should be worded to protect the sport on this front.

I know HSE laws are designed to protect workers, but for mine, contact sport has to have different definitions, sport ultimately is a hobby, and people choose to do it knowing the risks. If I decide to climb a tree in the park, and fall out and hurt myself, I shouldn’t be allowed to sue the park for having climbable trees and no signs saying ‘don’t climb the trees’, but I bet I could find a solicitor willing to take on the case based on that.