RIP Shane Tuck

Jan 3, 2012
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Loved Tucky, feel for his family, but we are looking at an accumulation of junior footy + 2 years with the Hawks VFL + SANFL + AFL + 2 years boxing (5 fights and a bazillion sparring sessions), so it's impossible for the Coroner to apportion blame here.
It’s a bit like my cancer , they are pretty sure it was from the work I did, but which copier company do we chase?
 

Infamy

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Loved Tucky, feel for his family, but we are looking at an accumulation of junior footy + 2 years with the Hawks VFL + SANFL + AFL + 2 years boxing (5 fights and a bazillion sparring sessions), so it's impossible for the Coroner to apportion blame here.
Especially the boxing which had some pretty brutal KOs
 

DoItForCaptBlood

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Sep 8, 2008
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I've been worried about this a bit. Like many on here perhaps, but I had 4-5 concussions playing, the first in primary school footy, and one I came to in the rooms.

Only can really cross the fingers I guess. Might look at getting tests done in the future if it's likely to show anything.

Tucky was a warrior though. Gave his all. Didn't know about the boxing. No doubt it all added up.
 
Aug 25, 2007
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pretty shitty of the coroner. we dont want any bad to come to the club, but at the same time if people at the club have done wrong they need to be held to account. or even if its not about holding anyone to account, just to learn what happened so things can be improved. if all they are going to do is go 'he killed himself cause his brain was f’ed from playing footy' without looking into whether the doctors treated him right during his career, whats the point?


That’s exactly what the Coroner is doing

“Under its jurisdiction, the coroner's job is to independently investigate deaths and use the evidence to make recommendations to try and prevent others from dying in a similar way”

The lawyer wants the Coroner to literally say it was all Richmond’s fault, which the Coroner rightly said isn’t his job.
 
Bit sad all around. No doubt his footy career played some part but then he still chose to box with I assume the support of the family so to blame Richmond is pretty piss poor. Unfortunately Tucky played in that transition period of when CTE was starting to be known but there was still the hard man walk it off culture of the past fighting back. Luckily we've already come a long way in since.
 
Jan 3, 2012
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That’s exactly what the Coroner is doing

“Under its jurisdiction, the coroner's job is to independently investigate deaths and use the evidence to make recommendations to try and prevent others from dying in a similar way”

The lawyer wants the Coroner to literally say it was all Richmond’s fault, which the Coroner rightly said isn’t his job.
The lawyer is after a pay day, life insurance generally doesn’t pay on suicides
 

Ancient Tiger

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Nov 24, 2008
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The guy had to get stretchered off after his first professional boxing fight. Clearly no one knew the damage he had done and was doing to his brain or if they did then whoever let him pursue a professional boxing career needs to be locked up.

I'm sure the club adhered to the professional medical standards at the time which unfortunately in hind site across the globe were not good enough. Sounds like someone chasing a pay day and trying to pin it on the club to me.
 
Feb 9, 2009
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That’s exactly what the Coroner is doing

“Under its jurisdiction, the coroner's job is to independently investigate deaths and use the evidence to make recommendations to try and prevent others from dying in a similar way”

The lawyer wants the Coroner to literally say it was all Richmond’s fault, which the Coroner rightly said isn’t his job.
why shouldnt they investigate how the club handled tuck? how can you possibly learn what not to do and what to do in future, if you dont look at what was done previously? and why shouldnt they look at whether the the conduct of the club doctors was reasonable and if any compensation is deserved? how do we know if there was any negligence in his care if noone looks? the club shouldnt get a free pass just because we love it.
 

Ancient Tiger

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why shouldnt they investigate how the club handled tuck? how can you possibly learn what not to do and what to do in future, if you dont look at what was done previously? and why shouldnt they look at whether the the conduct of the club doctors was reasonable and if any compensation is deserved? how do we know if there was any negligence in his care if noone looks? the club shouldnt get a free pass just because we love it.
And exactly what were the rules of the day? That's the problem here. There were no clear rules. CTE didn't even exist in the vocabulary. The explosion in head trauma knowledge came well after Tuck. Basically the convention of the day was that if players felt ok, they could go back on. And players almost always said they were OK. I don't think you'll find the the RFC did anything different to any other sporting club at the time.
 
Jul 3, 2009
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There's quite the possibility that Tuckys service to the RFC contributed to his death. Not to say our medical staff did anything wrong, they knew what they knew at the time... and it seems a bloody tricky disease, being only diagnosable after death. But nonetheless I hope the RFC is still offering support to his family, and I hope there is some sort of recoginition of Tucky, of what he meant to the club. He was already a heart & soul player before any of this.
 
Last edited:
Aug 25, 2007
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why shouldnt they investigate how the club handled tuck? how can you possibly learn what not to do and what to do in future, if you dont look at what was done previously? and why shouldnt they look at whether the the conduct of the club doctors was reasonable and if any compensation is deserved? how do we know if there was any negligence in his care if noone looks? the club shouldnt get a free pass just because we love it.

Because the Coroner can’t do that, how many times do you have to be told?
 
Oct 19, 2020
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why shouldnt they investigate how the club handled tuck? how can you possibly learn what not to do and what to do in future, if you dont look at what was done previously? and why shouldnt they look at whether the the conduct of the club doctors was reasonable and if any compensation is deserved? how do we know if there was any negligence in his care if noone looks? the club shouldnt get a free pass just because we love it.
I agree. Tuck was not given the same duty of care as other players. He was seen as a fringe player for a lot of his career and his value to the team was as a bulldozer type mid who took tbe hard knocks
The interpretation of the too high rule didn't help either, it encouraged players to go in head first for the ball to win a free kick.
The club should admit some fault and apologize to his wife imo.
 
Feb 9, 2009
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And exactly what were the rules of the day? That's the problem here. There were no clear rules. CTE didn't even exist in the vocabulary. The explosion in head trauma knowledge came well after Tuck. Basically the convention of the day was that if players felt ok, they could go back on. And players almost always said they were OK. I don't think you'll find the the RFC did anything different to any other sporting club at the time.
well that may very well be the case. but how will you know if you dont look?
 
Feb 9, 2009
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I agree. Tuck was not given the same duty of care as other players. He was seen as a fringe player for a lot of his career and his value to the team was as a bulldozer type mid who took tbe hard knocks
The interpretation of the too high rule didn't help either, it encouraged players to go in head first for the ball to win a free kick.
The club should admit some fault and apologize to his wife imo.
dont misunderstand me, im not saying tuck wasnt treated with care. im saying how can we know if we dont look, and if he was then why shouldnt mrs tuck be owed some compensation and the club held liable.

it just comes off as very 'dont ask questions you dont want the answer to', which is never good.
 

Tivva29

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Sep 21, 2012
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Hard one with Tucky. He played in an era which for the most part was 80’s football with better boots. Head knocks were still treated as nothing overly serious unless the person was out cold. As these guys get older and the ones who donate their brains get assessed IMO it will be a major day of reckoning for clubs of all levels and all the leagues from suburban up to the AFL.
I can understand Bennys terse response in the media but I didn’t like the arse covering tone of it. Read like the NFL when they denied CTE, like big Tabacco denying that smoking was addictive. Legal arse covering.
 

Ancient Tiger

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well that may very well be the case. but how will you know if you dont look?
I’m not sure what you mean. What do you think we’d find? What do you think we did at the time that wasn’t being done elsewhere? Do you think the doctors forced him back on the field? I can tell you that they never would have done that. If his wife was so concerned with the way we treated him, why didn’t she say something to the club at the time? if she did and was ignored, why didn’t she make a media statement? If she knew that he was being treated poorly, how did she ever let him get into boxing after retirement with its endless sparring sessions and brutal head hits?
You see, no one knew this was going to happen. If they did, they never would have allowed him to get back on the footy field let alone a boxing ring. We don’t need to look at the past to know what we were doing wrong because others have studied this in detail and we are doing things now to try to prevent them from happening again.
 
Oct 19, 2020
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dont misunderstand me, im not saying tuck wasnt treated with care. im saying how can we know if we dont look, and if he was then why shouldnt mrs tuck be owed some compensation and the club held liable.

it just comes off as very 'dont ask questions you dont want the answer to', which is never good.
They changed the concussion rules because the old rules were inadequate, so it's not a stretch to say mistakes were made.
 

Richo88

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Aug 20, 2007
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Tigers statement on the matter - happy they are going strong on this:


I don't get why you'd be happy about this. How does anyone at this point know that the tiger's medicos actually did do the right thing. There's seems to be this belief that the club followed best practises based on the the understanding of head knocks at the time. How do we know they did? or is it beyond consideration that the medicos didn't give the best treatment possible for those times. Even the footage released today showing him in absolute pain from a knock yet we keep him 50 points up with 6 minutes left in the 4th. Plenty of examples of sporting clubs not caring about their players, in our game and around the world, let's not pretend that it doesn't happen. Not saying it is the case here but let's be open to the possibility and have it looked at properly.
 
I don't get why you'd be happy about this. How does anyone at this point know that the tiger's medicos actually did do the right thing. There's seems to be this belief that the club followed best practises based on the the understanding of head knocks at the time. How do we know they did? or is it beyond consideration that the medicos didn't give the best treatment possible for those times. Even the footage released today showing him in absolute pain from a knock yet we keep him 50 points up with 6 minutes left in the 4th. Plenty of examples of sporting clubs not caring about their players, in our game and around the world, let's not pretend that it doesn't happen. Not saying it is the case here but let's be open to the possibility and have it looked at properly.

Well I seriously doubt that the club would make such a statement without support and evidenced scrutiny of our clinical risk processes around concussion management by a third party.

Worksafe appointed concussion management specialists in 2020 and it’s public knowledge that they were conducting reviews of concussion management at an industry and club level. And I’m sure that Worksafe would not just focus on the now and have every right to look back.

The Club has an obligation under Health and Safety legislation to provide a duty of care to employees, contractors and volunteers. It’s one of the highest risks of any AFL Club and the level of controls to mitigate this risk are extensive and mandated as a minimum by legislation. I’m positive that these controls are reviewed extensively, regularly and independently. Directors are liable under this legislation, as are management. When you consider that Club Directors are volunteers, it’s a legislative burden that is taken incredibly seriously as it should. So I doubt, based on that, that the Club would make such a statement without support.

It’s incredibly sad re Tucky. A wonderful Richmond person and servant. The greatest legacy would be to learn and inform ourselves and the industry regarding CTE causes and management. The Tuck Family (Mum and Sister) addressed a Club80 function recently and reinforced that.

Haere Ra
 
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