My oldest played rugby from about 12 to 20. I spent more time in A&E with him because of Rugby injuries than I care to remember. So did his friends' parents.
Broken bones
Torn muscles
Snapped tendons
Fractured eye sockets
Neck injuries
Back injuries
Head injuries
Brain injuries
And in all of that, we always knew that they had all been very very lucky not to end up with permanent damage. And that was with evenly matched players respecting the rules (mostly, youthful exuberance did play a part sometimes).
I once remarked upon the fact that while the sport itself can be brutal, ill discipline and foul play are dealt with so swiftly that it seemed far more civilised than football. Even the parents on the sidelines were behaving with so much more respect for referees and opposing teams than at the football matches I also attended as a player's parent.
It is too dangerous a sport to tolerate ill discipline and foul play in Rugby I was told. When the ref calls out dangerous tackles, the players either listen or they get sent off. And eventually they get dropped from the team, because anyone - no matter how talented - who doesn't understand that such actions needlessly risk injury to himself or other players is seen as a danger to all players.
The philosophy is one of accepting the dangers of a full and high speed collision sport, but of carefully minimising and managing risk.
And there is a great awareness of the emerging strength of young males in the rather strict age separation. Instead of putting two year groups together for instance if there are not enough players, there is no team sometimes, because just 12 months in teenage males makes such a huge difference in weight, height, strength, speed and power.
And then the older lads are sent to train with the women when they don't have enough players to train as a team, just to keep up the skills and fitness level.
But after they hit their late teens, this stops, because the boys are becoming too strong - despite the formidable ladies we've got in our local teams.
I always found it frightening, but two things stuck out the most - when my son joined the men's team and was suddenly confronted with the full force of adult males crushing into him (even within legal play, when they take no quarter, however puny the new lad seems, it's beyond scary).
And his last youth game. I had long stopped attending the games, as I found it too frightening and couldn't muster any enthusiasm for seeing my son bloodied yet again.
"Last game mum, I promise you'll enjoy it." Alright, I'll come for a bit, I thought, how bad can it be.
Well, by the time I got there, the refs and coaches were desperately trying to keep a lad warm, and calm who had landed on his head and not gotten up again. Trying to find a place for the helicopter to land, waiting for the ambulance crew to ready him for transport.
If I never see any of my kids or any kid I know play Rugby it'll be too soon. Even if that particular boy was alright, eventually, I know of others who weren't.
Don't get me wrong, the players love, truly love the game. Adults and kids alike. Coming home covered in mud from head to toe with only the whites of their eyes and teeth showing. Proud and exhausted after a victory. It teaches team work like few other games, or so I've come to believe.
Putting men, however they identify, into the women's game doesn't just destroy the women's game, it doesn't just endanger women, it doesn't just piss on any notion of fair play and competition and trample it into the mud, it flies in the face of everything this sport stands for - an honourable contest between two teams of fierce and fearsome physical creatures, whether male and female teams, that pays more than lip service to ideas of fair play, of camaraderie and respect for mates, opponents and officials.
Whoever that person is in that BBC Wales article, this attitude is not one normally celebrated or even tolerated in Rugby. A collective madness must have descended upon the local officials to have enabled this.