Before he died, rugby star Shane Christie sent a secret NZ Rugby report to NZ Herald journalist David Fisher. He believed it needed to be made public, and its contents used to keep future rugby players safe.
Warning: Distressing content.
In NZ Rugby’s confidential report into how it looked after recently-deceased former professional player Shane Christie, sweeping changes are proposed for the way it manages players with head injuries.
The report describes a detailed safety-net of measures Christie insisted be explored in the hope NZ Rugby would improve the safety of those playing our national sport.
A former Māori All Black and Super Rugby player, Christie convinced NZ Rugby to investigate his care with an inquiry and the 2019 report, after complaining about how how it managed his debilitating concussion injuries over the course of his career.
Christie died last Wednesday in a suspected suicide. He was prevented from sharing the report while he was alive.
He provided the report and related correspondence to the Herald in 2024 because he wanted it made public.
He saw it as part of his personal campaign to promote awareness of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) - a disease medical consensus says is caused by repeated head knocks.
After Christie’s suspected suicide last Wednesday the Herald told NZ Rugby it would be publishing their recommendations, and asked whether any of them had been implemented.
NZ Rugby responded with detailed updates to the recommendations and said it was exploring how it could make the information public.
Christie’s death came two years after the suspected suicide of his close friend Billy Guyton, aged 33.
Posthumous study of Guyton’s brain at the Neurological Foundation Human Brain Bank found he had grade 2 CTE.
Christie, who believed he had the same condition, has donated his brain to be studied at the same brain bank.
CTE leads to dementia-like symptoms and death, but those with it experience a range of mental health problems as well, including anger, confusion, depression, impulsivity, personality changes and poor decision-making.
The safety recommendations were part of an inquiry report into Christie’s concussion care, paid for by NZ Rugby and written by judge Jeremy Doogue in 2019 after Christie repeatedly raised issues over how his head injuries had been managed.
Doogue’s report had no major criticism of NZ Rugby’s responses to Christie’s worsening symptoms.
Doogue described the recommendations as “lessons for the future … to be learnt from the way in which NZR managed the player’s concussion injuries."
In summary, the recommendations seek stronger concussion screening, formal rehabilitation plans, improved medical handover systems, and protocols to escalate serious cases to senior management.
The report urged NZ Rugby to address a culture of under-reporting, build a digital concussion database, educate players on risks, create a player welfare group led by senior and past players and to monitor science on long-term risks to brain health.
Christie shared his thoughts about the recommendations with the Herald and those comments have never been published until now.
He said he never had an issue with his doctors.
“It was with NZRU processes, as my doctors were limited with the specialist I was referred to and the treatment if any I was able to access.
“I knew this at the time speaking to my docs. That didn’t really come out in the report. It came across as the doctors could be at fault but in my view it was the system the docs had to treat players within.”
Christie told the Herald he was frustrated to be held to an obligation of confidence around the entire report in order to protect the identities of the doctors who treated him.
He said the recommendations in the second part of the report made no reference to the doctors and the secrecy allowed NZ Rugby to avoid being open about the proposals, and what changes it had made - if any.
Correspondence between Christie and NZ Rugby, via his lawyer and friend Craig Morice, show it took Christie two years from the completion of the recommendations in early 2019 to get an update from NZ Rugby on progress.
In February 2021, chief executive Mark Robinson offered “apologies for the delay in responding” saying “there are many contributing factors to the delays”.
Robinson said “the majority of the recommendations within the Doogue Report were either already in place to varying degrees or are currently in the process of being incorporated.
“In fact, in many instances, our current practices and those which are being implemented are more comprehensive than the recommendations within the Doogue Report.”
It’s a claim Christie disputed and among the reasons he began to push for the recommendations to be made public.
The death of Guyton in 2023 compelled Christie to push to speak freely about the recommendations.
He wanted to heighten scrutiny and provide players, former players and the fan base with the full information.
He continued to be held to the confidentiality agreement.
NZ Rugby told Christie in October last year that he was not able to speak publicly on the issue.
At the time, Christie told the Herald: “It shows they don’t want to be exposed for not living up to their slogan of having the best interests of players and their wellbeing at heart.
“If they were confident, they would have released the recommendations straight away” he said.
Christie was critical of NZ Rugby on a number of points, including its player recovery and rehabilitation plans. He considered them to be strictly conventional.
He said those who worked at rugby’s cutting edge should be supported by leading medical science.
“The [NZ Rugby] doctors aren’t aware of other science. That’s a key point the judge states - NZ Rugby needs to keep up to date with [research].”
Christie also believed NZ Rugby should support unconventional or experimental treatments for people like him, who had stopped playing and were left with long-lasting effects.
He felt frustrated at trying to manage cognitive decline without tools, or support to access alternative treatments.
Christie also wanted NZ Rugby to make a more definite statement on CTE - and for ACC to align its position with medical bodies rather than sporting codes.
NZ Rugby’s current position is to acknowledge an “association” between CTE in the autopsies of contact sportspeople, and repeated head impacts.
It says: “A causal link between CTE-NC and clinically diagnosed neurodegenerative diseases is not currently well-established.”
It’s a position in line with World Rugby and other major sporting bodies.
Meanwhile medical organisations have taken a different position.
An Australian Senate inquiry has described a causative link between repeated head impacts and CTE, as has the US National Institute of Health, the US Alzheimer’s Association and Boston University’s CTE Center - the world’s largest research hub into the disease.
Christie said in 2024 he believed NZ Rugby had taken its lead from World Rugby - which at that time was defending a massive lawsuit in the United Kingdom.
Hundreds of former rugby and league players alleged it had failed to protect them from head impacts causing long-term brain injuries - and suspected CTE.
Morice told the Herald the recommendations for change were a result of Christie’s determination the Doogue inquiry “had to be more than just about what happened to him, it had to be about those that played alongside him and those that would follow in the future”.
Morice said NZ Rugby had resisted pressure from Christie and himself to make the recommendations public.
“NZ Rugby’s position not to release the recommendations ... caused significant stress and hurt to Shane. Shane communicated to me that he felt he had let his teammates and friends down by not protecting them more.”
Morice said events following Christie’s death showed NZ Rugby was “willing to be more open and transparent with the public and the professional players” about the link between rugby and CTE.
He urged the NZ Rugby Players Association to “pick up the baton that Shane carried for so long” and advocate on the issue.
“Shane Christie loved the game of rugby and never wanted to destroy it. He simply wanted to make it safer for those that played it.”
A spokesman for NZ Rugby said it was “committed to being open and transparent about brain health and concussion”.
He said NZ Rugby also shared information on its website and delivered concussion and mental health campaigns.
The spokesman said the players’ association and NZ Rugby staff met with and supported players “at all levels” including “meeting with Shane to provide support and answer his questions”.
The possible changes identified in the report were:
David Fisher is a senior journalist for the New Zealand Herald who has twice been named New Zealand’s Reporter of the Year. He is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
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