Former Māori All Black and NZ sevens player Shane Christie fears head trauma suffered on the field has left him with CTE.
The 39-year-old’s brain will be donated to medical science upon his death.
Christie supports a ban on contact rugby for under 14-year-olds to reduce exposure to hard blows.
He says he understands why a growing number of Kiwi parents won’t let their kids play rugby.
Rugby-related brain damage has left him fatigued, “frustrated with the limitations that I have” and unable to work full time.
A former rugby star forced into retirement due to repeated head trauma will donate his brain to medical research in a bid to make the sport he loved playing safer.
Butsevere post-concussion symptoms forced him into retirement six years ago, aged 32.
In a wide-ranging interview, Christie has spoken of why it is so important for him to donate his brain to medical science, the post-concussion symptoms he lives with every day, that have left him unable to work, and changes he would make to rugby to make it safer for the next generation.
The future donation of his brain would go to the New Zealand Sports Human Brain Bank – an extension of the Neurological Foundation Human Brain Bank – and be used to study how sporting head impacts can affect brain health and the potential onset of brain disease.
“Why is it important for me? To help the research in New Zealand because we have only had a few brains that have a long history of concussion problems,” Christie told the NZ Herald.
“They need that [donations] to research how many concussions the person had over their career, if it was specific to my brain, and how they can determine the safety measurements for the future players.
“Without brain donations, they are not going to be able to identify how long it takes to get this disease.”
Christie will follow in the footsteps of great mate and former team-mate Billy Guyton - who was forced to retire in 2018 after a series of head injuries - in having his brain donated to medical science at the Auckland-based institute.
“He knew that he was having serious issues with his head. He knew that he would have been donating his brain,” Christie said.
“In a lot of ways, he was giving a gift that we have been able to learn from. He was like that. He was a super-selfless guy.”
Shane Christie goes on the charge while playing NPC rugby for Tasman. Photo / Getty Images
CTE is a disorder increasingly found amongst former top-level players of a raft of global football codes.
Aged just 45, former All Blacks prop Carl Hayman has early onset dementia and likely CTE.
Christie thought he “potentially” could also have CTE due to the head blows he endured during his professional playing career, which included stints at Super Rugby franchises the Highlanders and Crusaders.
“I have definitely got some sort of post-concussion syndrome.”
Players ‘don’t want to end up getting neurological diseases’
Hayman is now among more than 100 former rugby players who are taking legal action against World Rugby and the England and Wales rugby unions amid claims those sporting bodies failed to protect them from permanent injury relating to repeated concussions.
The former prop became the world’s highest paid player when he joined English club Newcastle after the All Blacks failed 2007 Rugby World Cup campaign.
Former All Black Carl Hayman is among a group of former players suing rugby bosses over head trauma. Photo / Photosport
The conversations centred around the lasting legacy of head injuries Hayman, Christie and Guyton had suffered during their pro playing careers.
Hayman also put him in touch with former Welsh international Alix Popham; also forced into retirement with post-concussion issues and who has been diagnosed with early onset dementia and probably CTE.
Popham helped create UK-based Progressive Rugby; a non-profit player welfare lobby group demanding better protection of rugby players to ensure the long term future of the sport.
It includes current and former players (both professional and amateur), medical experts, coaches, referees, teachers, administrators and fans.
Christie is now a member of the group.
Shane Christie wearing a t-shirt made to commemorate his friend and former fellow player, Billy Guyton.
His great mate Guyton was also made a posthumous member in mid-2024, with his father John saying: “Billy loved the game and we know he would have been proud and excited to have represented a group striving to ensure both the players and the game can have a long and healthy future”.
Christie said his late mate was a “strong advocate” of player safety and mental health.
He said Guyton would have been “proud” to be linked with Progressive Rugby and the player welfare initiatives they back.
They include the introduction across the professional ranks of maximum game time, and strict enforcement of those playing-minute limits, mandated contact training limits, protected rest periods, and mandatory 21-day stand-down period for players who have been concussed.
Training and playing limits were aimed at reducing the risk of sub-concussive blows, a risk factor for the later onset of neurological disease.
Shane Christie speaking at the service for his friend Bill Guyton who took his life and was later found through autopsy to have the brain injury, CTE.
Christie said the player welfare-based group went “against the grain” in the terms of what rugby traditionalists might expect from the game.
But he believed many of his peers who are still professional players privately support the group because someone is “standing up against the system” because of their desire to receive “the right care”.
“They don’t want to have long-term brain damage. They don’t want to end up getting neurological diseases from playing their career; a sport that they are supposed to love and fortunate enough to make a career out of it.”
Why stricken ex-pro would restrict contact rugby to youths aged at least 14
Christie would go even further in terms of protecting the next generation of young players.
And he’s using medical research to back a call to increase the minimum age of contact rugby to 14. In New Zealand, contact rugby starts at seven.
That includes a range of studies, including one in the United States which alarmingly found 40% of the brains of ex-athletes it studied who played contact sports, but died by the age of 30, had CTE.
“If you are purely thinking about preventing long-term neurological damage, [14] is a good age,” Christie said.
Billy Guyton's death and the posthumous revelation that he had CTE sent shockwaves through the rugby community. Photo / Photosport
“If it is genuinely about the health and risks of neurological diseases that people have been dying from in New Zealand recently, then they have to look at that.”
Christie first played contact rugby aged five and a half.
He suffered his first concussion while at high school.
“I remember that very clearly. It was just practicing tackle at lunchtime.
“I didn’t think much of it, either.”
But concussions suffered during games and in practice sessions when he later turned professional would prove to be life changing.
An outstanding flanker, he suffered more than 10 concussions during his career; including head knocks in 2016 that he never fully recovered from.
“For three months I wasn’t recovering in time and then realised, ‘Shit, I have done a bit of damage to myself. I will spend another three or four months trying to come right’,” he said.
“And it didn’t come right.”
His last two concussions came during training sessions after impacts he described as “really light and I couldn’t handle them”.
“One of them was on my chest, one was on the side of my head . . . that is what bought my symptoms back enough for me to go, ‘I am not quite right, what is going on?’.”
After sitting out the 2017 season as he battled symptoms and tried to recover, Christie officially retired in May 2018.
As the fifth anniversary of his playing retirement nears, his quality of life is still badly impacted by the head trauma.
Shane Christie says he suffered his first concussion as a teen. Photo / Photosport
Rugby and the experiences it gave him – strong friendships and amazing times touring overseas – was something he “loved” and still looks back on fondly.
He has no regrets of playing at the top level and looks at the legacy it has left him with “as a blessing that I have been able to build more resilience from it”.
“I can only really view it as that,” Christie said.
“We can understand the risk. And there is risk in playing and it is quite high. I think playing is worth the risk.
“But I can understand why Kiwi families are preventing their kids from playing rugby because of what I have gone through, seeing what Billy has gone through, and then seeing what other professional rugby players have been through . . . and non-professionals too.”
Frustrated but not feeling ‘sorry’ for himself
The reality of life for Christie now is a world away from when he was at the peak of his rugby powers; including playing on pitches around the world proudly wearing the jerseys of the Māori All Blacks and the All Blacks Sevens teams.
He is unable to work full time, with side effects including being “fatigued all the time”.
Shane Christie surges upfield while playing for the Māori All Blacks during their 2012 tour of the UK. Photo / Photosport
His organisational skills have been impacted, as too is his “emotional stability”.
Proactive steps Christie takes to try and be the best he can include getting plenty of sleep and having a good diet.
Spending time in a hyperbaric chamber – undertaking oxygen therapy which can rejuvenate brain tissue – has also helped.
Having a positive outlook was also crucial, Christie said, despite the battles he faces.
“I am frustrated with the limitations that I have,” he said.
“I am frustrated not to be able to do what I could do, frustrated not to achieve what I think I can . . . because it makes you feel less than you are or what you were.”
Shane Christie - pictured in Crusaders gear during his stint there - says he is frustrated with what life has dealt him, but he doesn't feel sorry for himself. Photo / Getty Images
Christie’s frustrations shouldn’t be mistaken for thinking he feels “sorry for myself”.
Because – despite his injury-enforced retirement, and ongoing post-concussion issues – that’s not an emotion he feels.
Deep down, he knows things could be worse.
“I am nowhere near as bad as I was a year ago,” Christie said.
“This morning, I was in the shower thinking, ‘A year ago I was way worse than this’. At the time I was severely paranoid, I had headaches all day, every day, I wasn’t sleeping properly, I was super emotional, and I had severe anxiety.
“I am nowhere near as bad as that, so gratitude . . . man.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 30 years of newsroom experience.
