Crisis is a symptom of a sport torn between the commercial imperative to play more and the medical imperative to play less
You might have missed it in all the excitement, but Sergio Parisse finally announced his retirement late last month. After 21 years, 470 professional games, 142 Test matches (94 of them as captain), 15 Six Nations championships and five World Cups, Parisse had decided to quit at the end of the season. He still hasn’t given up hope of winning that one last valedictory cap for Italy, which he’s been waiting on ever since 2019. He lost out on it once because of the typhoon that washed out Italy’s match against the All Blacks at the 2019 World Cup, and then again when they postponed their Six Nations game against England during the pandemic.
“If the coach calls me, I’ll be happy to answer,” Parisse told the French press.
