Thirty-One Brains Out of Fifty-One: What the Sports Brain Bank Found in Rugby League
On 8 September 2026, at the International Sports Concussion Conference in Melbourne, a paper put a number on an argument rugby league has been having with itself for a decade. Of 51 former rugby league players whose brains were donated to the Australian Sports Brain Bank, 31 were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
That is a shade over 60 per cent. The players ranged from amateurs to internationals, and they were in their 20s, 30s and 40s when they died.
- Thirty-One Brains Out of Fifty-One: What the Sports Brain Bank Found in Rugby League
What the study actually measured
The figures come from the first 150 brain examinations of contact-sport athletes completed at the Australian Sports Brain Bank. Rugby league accounted for 51 of those 150. The paper was presented by Jennifer Cropley, a molecular biologist and data scientist, and co-authored by Alan Pearce of Swinburne University.
One caveat matters more than any other, and it cuts both ways. Brains arrive at the bank because a family chose to donate, and families usually choose to donate when something was wrong. That makes the sample self-selecting, so 60 per cent is not the rate across everyone who has ever played. It is the rate among those whose families had reason to ask the question.
What the number does establish is scale. Thirty-one is not a handful of tragic outliers.
Which rugby league players have been diagnosed with CTE?
CTE can only be confirmed after death, by examining brain tissue. The sport’s other neurological story, motor neurone disease in rugby players, follows a separate disease process but the same argument about exposure. That is why the list of confirmed cases is short compared with the number of players who report symptoms, and why every name on it arrived there through a family’s decision.
Paul Green
Green played 162 first-grade games and coached North Queensland to the 2015 premiership. He died in 2022, aged 49. Professor Michael Buckland, who directs the brain bank, told Green’s widow Amanda that her husband had one of the most severe cases of CTE he had seen, and that Green’s intelligence may have let him mask symptoms for years.
Amanda Green has since become the most visible campaigner on the issue in Australia. “I had been involved in the highest level of professional sport in this country and did not understand this disease we now know as CTE,” she said. “That was not OK.” Looking back, she could identify the signs: anxiety, impatience, impulsive decisions, a shorter fuse, emotions running higher than they used to. At the time she put all of it down to the pressure of the job.
Green died by suicide. CTE has been found in a number of athletes who died the same way, though researchers are careful to say the causal link is not yet established.
Keith Titmuss
Titmuss was 20. He died in 2020 of exertional heat stroke after a Manly pre-season training session, and his parents Lafo and Paul donated his brain. The diagnosis became public in 2024: stage two CTE, at an age when most players are still being described as prospects.
He had started playing rugby league at five, then played schoolboy rugby union at Newington College. Fifteen years of contact, and it was already measurable. Pearce put it plainly: “Keith’s result, having stage two CTE at 20, tells us that this is not an old person’s disease.”
Nick Fozzard and Bobbie Goulding
In England the story has moved through the courts rather than the brain bank. In April 2023 legal proceedings were formally issued against the Rugby Football League on behalf of 100 former players, many diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable CTE. A pre-action phase against the RFL and the British Amateur Rugby League Association had begun in September 2021.
Nick Fozzard, the former St Helens and Great Britain forward, is among them. He has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable CTE, and said specialists told him his brain scans were among the worst they had seen. His response was characteristic: “I’m OK so please don’t worry but thought I’d share this: one thing to remember, if rugby league wasn’t the most brutal team sport on earth, I wouldn’t have played it. What a life I had in rugby league.”
Bobbie Goulding, the former Great Britain half-back, has spoken about a similar diagnosis and about how little support reached him after he retired.
How rugby league compares with other codes
Three sets of findings landed within four months of each other in 2026, which is the only reason a comparison is possible at all. The methods differ, so these are not like-for-like rates.
| Sport | Finding | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Rugby league (Australia) | 31 of 51 donated brains had CTE | Australian Sports Brain Bank, presented Sept 2026 |
| Australian rules | 33 players diagnosed | ABC Four Corners, June 2026 |
| NFL | At least 1 in 4 former players who died 2016 to 2021 | Boston University, August 2026 |
The Four Corners report on Australian rules triggered investigations by WorkSafe Victoria and WorkSafe WA. That is worth noting because it shows where this goes next. Once a brain injury is framed as a workplace injury, the governing body stops being the only party with a say.
What the researchers want changed
Pearce’s recommendation is specific and it is aimed at children, not professionals. He wants contact limits in rugby league, and he wants the contact versions of collision sports replaced with non-contact versions for everyone under 14.
His reasoning rests on Titmuss. A player who died at 20 with stage two CTE had accumulated his exposure in junior football, long before anyone was paid. “His brain results show the effect of that,” Pearce said.
The NRL was contacted for comment on the findings.
Where the English litigation stands
The Australian story is being told through a brain bank. The English one is being told through a law firm.
Rylands Law began a pre-action phase against the Rugby Football League and the British Amateur Rugby League Association in September 2021. That phase was intended to settle the matter without a trial. It did not, and in April 2023 proceedings were formally issued on behalf of 100 former rugby league players.
They are not alone. More than 220 former rugby union players had already launched a parallel action, and a group of ex-footballers including the former Manchester United defender Colin Gibson has brought its own. The claim in each case is the same: that the governing body failed to take reasonable steps to protect players from repetitive concussive and subconcussive blows.
Rylands framed the objective as recognition rather than damages alone. The aim, the firm said, is “to reach a point where they accept the connection between repetitive blows to the head and permanent neurological injury and to take steps to protect players and support those who are injured.”
The RFL’s position is that it takes player welfare seriously, that contact sport carries inherent risk, and that its concussion protocols, head injury assessments and education have continued to develop in line with the science. “It has been desperately sad to hear of any players’ difficulties,” the governing body said.
What CTE is, in one paragraph
CTE is caused by repetitive hits to the head and body. Not by one famous knockout, but by the accumulation of impacts, including the ones that never get recorded because nobody was concussed. Symptoms can include memory loss, impulsivity, anxiety and anger. It is progressive, there is no treatment, and at present it can only be confirmed post mortem.
Frequently Asked Questions
If this article raises concerns for you, support is available in Australia from Lifeline on 13 11 14, and in the UK from Samaritans on 116 123.
