A fitness fanatic with the physique of someone who could still play, Fenech is a protein shake half-full kind of person. He admitted he had some form of brain damage but medication and support from leading doctors and neurologists had improved his life.

"Yes, I have no worries saying that I've had some problems in years gone by," he said. "I suffered significant head knocks as a player. I knew that I was going to pay a price one day. But thankfully I have great people around me now."

Then he said this: "I was fronted about suing the league – but it wasn't an option."

Almost every former player will tell you the same thing.

But, on Sunday, retired Knights winger James McManus revealed in an explosive story in the Sun-Herald that he is taking the option Fenech refused to take; not against the NRL but his club.

The details of his claim remain unclear. Does it relate to a series of head knocks, or one particular incident when the club has been negligent in allowing him to take the field when he shouldn't have?

McManus has every right to take legal action if he feels the club has not acted properly. Any player does.

But this quote from McManus to Fairfax Media is concerning: "There could be some ground-breaking things here … you don't want to be in the position where you are the first to do something, but I think things have to change in the game, there's no doubt about that."

Are the floodgates about to be flung open, with platoons of former players suing the clubs, doctors, coaches and the NRL itself for the cost of playing a brutal and violent sport?

Will ambulance-chasing lawyers, who can sniff out a buck from under 10-foot of wet cement, suddenly see a fat payday on the horizon?

Will rugby league be forced to absorb something like the $1.3 billion class action levelled against the National Football League by tens of thousands of former players for the way it has treated players with brain damage?

You can bet the insurance companies of both the NRL and its clubs will be watching with interest. Former and even current players will quickly discover that it costs a lot of money to make lavish claims that are difficult to prove.

And when it comes to trauma of the brain, it remains difficult to prove.

If the NRL and clubs are not doing enough to protect its most valuable assets – its players – they deserve the reckoning that's about to come.

But this very simple fact should not be forgotten: rugby league is a tough, brutal, violent sport and there is an inherent risk of injury whenever a player takes the field. Players know that. They play the game anyway.

It's also too easy to read the case of McManus and argue the NRL is not doing enough in the area of concussion. In the last two years, there has been significant change in culture as much as game-day protocols.

Some clubs might not be as vigilant as others, but if you talk to most coaches and club bosses, they're more than aware of the penalties and risks involved in sending a concussed player back onto the field. Sure, they will exploit the rule to take a player off for a free interchange.

But the days when the coach screamed down the two-way to keep a concussed player on the field are over.

In the past, coaches ran some clubs. They told the doctor what to do. The fallout from the ASADA scandal and the fear of exactly what's happening with McManus has certainly changed that.

The days of players staggering to their feet and groggily ambling back into the defensive line are also long gone. So is the day when Fenech told the club doctor to wave some smelling salts under his nose so he could play on. Even the days when Bulldogs captain James Graham refused to leave the field with concussion as he did three seasons ago have forever been banished.

This season, the rules around concussion have been strengthened. If a player merely stays down for too long, let alone show any obvious signs of concussion, he won't be allowed to continue playing.

It sounds like a copout but there is so much that's unknown about the brain that is problematic for those who run the game to balance a duty of care with the fact that big blokes who weigh more than 100kgs are running at each other at rather quick speeds, trying to hurt one another.

But if critics believe the NRL and its chief medical officer Paul Bloomfield are taking the issue of concussion lightly, they are wrong.

McManus has every right to sue, just as any player has the right to not play a collison sport that has always been dangerous.