Can you win it all and then forget it? That’s exactly what’s happened to French rugby star Sébastien Chabal, due to the repeated blows to the head he suffered while playing. “I don’t remember a single second of a rugby match I played,” he said in a recent interview on the YouTube show Legend, which has over two million subscribers. Now 47, Chabal appeared on the programme with his trademark long beard — a look that made him one of the sport’s most recognisable figures. Sébastien Chabal won two Six Nations titles with France — but he doesn’t remember them. He reached a World Cup semi-final and earned 62 caps for his country as a fearsome forward, but none of it has stayed with him. When asked whether he could remember the birth of his daughter, he simply replied: “No.” Nicknamed L’animal on the pitch, Chabal stood out not only for his powerful playing style, but also for his rugged appearance and unmistakable presence. Though he stepped away from the sport in 2014, his recent comments have once again sparked concern about the long-term effects of repeated head trauma in contact sports. “I don’t talk about it much because it’s personal,” he said, “but there are quite a few actions being taken by ex-players, in teams, because we took hits to the head. The brain mass impacted the spinal cord.”, he said. His brute strength and hard-hitting style on the field earned him fearsome nicknames like The Caveman, The Anaesthetist, and even Hannibal Lecter. Just months ago, more than 185 former players launched legal proceedings against World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), claiming they failed to protect players from permanent injury. “I feel, in the end, like I’m living my own life in third person,” Chabal admitted. “I don’t have those memories of the past. When I talk about it at home with my wife, I tell her it doesn’t feel like I was the one who played rugby.” More than 500 former rugby players — from both union and league — have already placed their trust in the British law firm Rylands Garth to represent them. Their work isn’t limited to those who played at the top levels professionally; they also support male and female players who gave their all to the sport at an amateur level. “We represent athletes of all levels and genders, and we do it on a simple promise: if we don’t win, we don’t get paid. You can join the claim with no financial risk,” they state on their website. Head knocks are part of the game — but their consequences can be devastating. While some injuries are immediately apparent, others take years to reveal themselves. Many former players are now battling serious neurological conditions including dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease, epilepsy, and long-term post-concussion syndrome. Rylands Garth believe rugby’s governing bodies failed to properly protect players from both concussions and the less obvious sub-concussions that still do damage. That’s why they’re supporting a growing group of former players in taking legal action — not just to seek compensation for those whose lives have been altered, but to help make the sport safer for everyone.