New studies, same old story. If experts can’t agree World Rugby owe it to the players to err on the side of caution

This article is written by Progressive Rugby


The concussion issue in rugby must have some at World Rugby reaching for the smelling salts as well as the headache pills.  

Yesterday was another double helping of crap crumble they can frankly do without, as their ‘player welfare is our number one priority’ mantra seemingly continues to fall on deaf ears, however loud they bellow it.

As it happens, this is pretty unfair. The sport’s governing body has made significant efforts and adopted an open-door policy to groups, including Progressive Rugby, a door that in past years would have been politely closed as if we’d turned up to ask if they’d thought about the benefits of double glazing.

World Rugby has introduced contact training guidelines, law trials aimed at reducing head injury and increased investment in research with emerging cutting-edge technology, including gum shields and eye tracking systems.

But yesterday was one of those days. Just like in July this year when a study suggested almost 25% of elite players had micro-bleeding on the brain arrived just days after a damming UK parliamentary report had concluded that urgent action was needed to address a long-term failure to reduce the risk of concussion in sport.

Admittedly, October hadn’t started brilliantly, with departing European Professional Club Rugby chairman Simon Halliday stating World Rugby is sleepwalking its way to disaster over head injuries.  

It was a surprisingly candid interview with the Telegraph, with the former Bath, Harlequins and England international saying: “Change some laws fast. Get on with it. Why are you waiting? I am sick and tired of hearing platitudes.

“Make some decisions. You can commission as many reports as you like, but all I know is my wife won’t let my boys play rugby.

“Participation levels are down, down, down. Make decisions and you will bring people back.”

But yesterday, while the RFU supported and Drake Foundation funded BRAIN study of 146 retired elite players may have proved an irritation, in our eyes at Progressive Rugby, the far bigger body blow for sports’ governing bodies in general is a report claiming that the work of the Concussion in Sport Group (CISG) – on which most elite and grassroots concussion protocol is shaped – is flawed.


The paper, published in the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, calls for a radical overhaul of their concussion policies, claiming that the process, funded by sports’ governing bodies, has consistently underplayed the risks of concussive and sub-concussive impacts.

Concern about the role of CISG had already reared its head at the aforementioned select committee inquiry into Concussion in Support earlier this year, and committee member Kevin Brennan MP has been quick to welcome these latest findings and concurred with its demands for a more “transparent and player-centred approach to reaching consensus” on the issue.

So, if World Rugby acknowledge - through no fault of its own - that the current six-stage protocol could be based on a flawed process – is that not a golden opportunity for it to err on the side of caution and implement change?

Progressive Rugby has long pointed to the fact that 30 years ago players who had been concussed were subject to three weeks off. This ‘no ifs, no buts’ position not only protected the player but also took pressure off them, and the medical staff, to try and get them back for what a coach may deem a key fixture.

Yet nowadays, with collisions increasingly bone-jarring, a player can return to the field just six days after suffering a brain injury.

World Rugby’s not unreasonable position has been to ask for proof that six days isn’t sufficient, while Progressive Rugby’s retort is that surely the burden lies with them to prove that it is – especially given player welfare is their number one priority.

It’s fair here to say the average time players return from the six-stage concussion protocol is around 19 days, but the elephant-sized fact in the room is, that as the protocol stands, players can and do return in just six days.

We won’t go over the Luke Cowan-Dickie British and Irish Lions saga again but you can’t help feel, given the timing, that some of World Rugby’s officials must have spat coffee across their morning broadsheet when Warren Gatland included a player who had been so publicly and shockingly knocked unconscious just days beforehand.   

Asking an already dubious rugby community to accept that Cowan-Dickie had somewhat impressively managed to pass his concussion protocols while travelling first to Scotland and then flying to South Africa was a bridge too far.  

As a result, for all the good work around player welfare that World Rugby are undoubtedly doing, critics, including Progressive Rugby, will always point to a concussion protocol and that will remain a thorn in the governing body’s side until it is addressed.


 

“For all the good work around player welfare that World Rugby are undoubtedly doing, critics, including Progressive Rugby, always point to the concussion protocol which will remain a thorn in the governing body’s side until it is addressed.”

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