Welcome to the latest edition of Six to Go, where I look at some of the things that have caught my eye over the past seven days in the world of rugby league. This week, however, we focus on something much more important.
There were two great Pacific Island Tests on the Gold Coast at the weekend, New Zealand defeated Australia for the third time in a row, Kurt Gidley signed for Warrington and Greg Bird will miss State of Origin after copping an eight-game ban for an illegal throw.
The New Zealand Warriors are also looking to remove the ‘Warriors’ from their name and just become New Zealand as they look to bring Test hooker Issac Luke home from the Rabbitohs in addition to the already signed Roger Tuivasa-Sheck.
But all of this pales into insignificance when the rugby league family loses one of its own in tragic circumstances and comes together to show its support like it has in the last week.
Danny Jones was a 29-year-old part-time rugby league player with Championship 1 side Keighley Cougars. On a normal Sunday afternoon last weekend he went out to play halfback for the Cougars in a league game against London Skolars down in the capital. Danny did not feel 100 per cent in the warm-up but, like the vast majority of rugby players throughout the world, he thought he would shake it off.
But something wasn’t right and he knew it and did a rare thing for a rugby player – he asked to be substituted because he didn’t feel well. Unfortunately Danny collapsed at the side of the pitch and despite the best efforts of paramedics and treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in London, Danny died from a cardiac arrest. He was just 29.
Danny was known as a skilful and hard working halfback and represented Wales 12 times and was a member of their 2013 World Cup squad. According to teammates and friends he was a larger than life personality and loved a laugh and a joke.
Warrington Wolves legend Lee Briers, assistant Wales coach at the aforementioned World Cup, said Jones was instrumental in keeping the squad morale at a high during a tough World Cup for the Welshmen. Danny scored in every Cougars match in the 2009 season and was the only player in British rugby league to achieve that feat that year.
Even more heartbreaking and relevant than the fact that a 29-year-old fit young man has died of a cardiac arrest is that he was married and is the father of five-month-old twins who will now never get to know their father. As a father of four young(ish) children myself I cannot comprehend going out to work and then never coming home again.
How does your family cope with this? His wife did not get to even see her husband again after he left for his rugby match as he would do every week of the season, and she now has young twins to look after and no one to share the wonderful experience of young family life with. I hope she has a strong family that helps them through this but the fact is that it will never be the same.
This brings us to the question about whether this could have been prevented. There is no black and white answer to this. All Super League clubs have heart-screening in place as standard for their players, but Championship clubs do not. It’s probably because of costs and it is not guaranteed that Danny’s death could have been prevented even with heart-screening.
But there is a much higher probability that it would have been. A post-mortem has now revealed that Danny was suffering from hereditary heart disease and this could not even be picked up by an ECG that he had late last year. Even so, an annual ECG (electrocardiography) should be mandatory at every level of professional sport to ensure that everything possible is being done to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again.
Keighley Cougars opened their ground for fans to pay tribute to Danny and have been overwhelmed with the show of support from around the sporting world. Fans attended the ground and left shirts, scarves and flowers among other things. The club are going to re-name one of their stands at Cougar Park ‘The Danny Jones Stand’ and have retired the number six jersey which Danny was wearing last Sunday. A minute’s silence will be held for Danny at every rugby league match this weekend.
The RFL Benevolent fund set up a ‘Just Giving’ page in response to Danny’s death with all funds raised going to Danny’s wife and young children to help them cope with this tragic loss. It must be remembered that Danny was probably the main source of income for his family and, as a part-time player, had a full time job as well to hold down in addition to training four nights a week.
The money he earned will have paid the mortgage, utility bills, car and for food and clothes and everyday items we all take for granted – that is now gone in an instant. The original target for this fund was a mere £1000 – that was eclipsed very quickly and as of 9am Friday morning (UK time). The fund stood at £80,847.15 from nearly 4929 donations.
Super League players such as Tyrone McCarthy, Kyle Amor, Adam Cuthbertson, Craig Huby, Grant Millington and Oliver Holmes have been on social media urging fans to give money and promising to shave their beards and hair off if particular targets are met.
The public have done their job and met the targets and the players have lost their hair and beards. I urge everyone who reads this, if you haven’t already, to give whatever you can to the fund. This is the link you need.
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