📰 Former French star has "no memories" of rugby career

Former France international Sebastien Chabal has said he has “no memories” from his international rugby career, potentially as a result of concussions.

Chabal played 62 tests for France, mainly as a back-row forward, from 2000 until 2011.

He is most well known to All Blacks fans for playing in the French side which beat New Zealand 20-18 in the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter-final, and staring down Byron Kelleher in the pre-match haka.

“I don’t remember a single second of a rugby match I played,” Chabal said in an interview published Wednesday on YouTube channel Legend.

“I don’t remember a single one of the 62 Marseillaise [French national anthem] I experienced.”

Chabal, who didn’t mention the word “concussion” during the interview, said he has not consulted a neurologist.

“What would you do, my memory won’t return,” he said, adding he also no longer remembers the birth of his daughter.

A group of nearly 300 former players, including England World Cup-winners Steve Thompson and Phil Vickery, launched legal action over brain injuries in December 2023.

The players allege World Rugby, the Welsh Rugby Union and the Rugby Football Union failed to establish reasonable measures to protect their health and safety.

Injuries from head blows are said to have caused disorders such as motor neurone disease, early onset dementia, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease.

Last year, former Blues forward and captain Tom Robinson opened up on his struggles with concussion, which saw him decide to hang up the boots, aged 30.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission