Could England become the first team to reach three successive finals of the Rugby World Cup? A sporting success is always guaranteed to raise the nation’s spirits and amongst all the gloomy global headlines, we could certainly use a boost.
But if England doesn’t make it past this weekend’s quarter finals we at Advanced Vision Care believe we could give Martin Johnson a very useful tip that could make all the difference in the future: equip any shortsighted players with 20/20 vision by having a simple laser eye surgery treatment.
Now that may sound a bit glib but it’s actually a very practical, quick and accessible strategy for improving performance on the pitch.
As with any vigorous contact sport – or pretty much any sport come to that – wearing glasses is clearly not an option. The only other choice is contact lenses but, as many sportsmen and women will testify, the risk of a lens becoming dislodged or lost can spell disaster – literally the difference between winning and losing. The only permanent solution is to do away with the problem altogether by having laser eye surgery.
One leading figure in the rugby world who we know agrees with us is former rugby international and now director of rugby at Harlequins, Conor O’Shea. After grappling with the problem of wearing contact lenses on the pitch all his professional playing career, Conor finally decided to have his shortsightedness corrected with LASIK IntraLase treatment at Advanced Vision Care earlier this year.
He now has 20/20 vision in one eye and better than 20/20 in the other eye. For a fast-moving sport such as rugby where players need to be able to spot opportunities ahead in time to react before their opponents, the value of having unimpeded perfect vision hardly needs further explanation.
Apart from all the lifestyle benefits that excellent natural vision brings, for a sportsman, laser eye surgery is nothing to do with vanity, it’s all about performance. Rugby is a game of visual skills and if you don’t have sharp eyesight and good peripheral vision you’re at a disadvantage, no matter how skilled a player you are.
If Conor could turn the clock back and erase all the heart-stopping moments when he lost a contact lens on the pitch, he says he would do it in the blink of an eye. What he can do is recommend to his Harlequins players and peers in the professional rugby arena that they seriously look into laser eye surgery for themselves.
If that happens, when England hosts the Rugby World Cup in 2015, we could be making it four times in the final in a row. You never know.
