HELMETS FOR ALL FOOTY PLAYERS

COMPULSORY helmets could protect footballers from debilitating head trauma, according to advocates of a rule change.

Geelong disability advocate and veteran Karingal manager Jacqui Pierce has called for helmets to be mandatory for junior footballers.

“We’re the adults, we’re the policy makers. Let’s make it a ma mandatory policy that in junior foo football every child, just like they put th their mouth guard in, puts their he helmet on their head when they walk onto that field,” said Ms Pierce, who was also an influential advocate fo for the National Disability In Insurance Scheme.

“(My view) doesn’t make me popular with the contact-sport fraternity.”

Concerns around head trauma remain a live issue in the AFL, and parents and junior clubs are increasingly adopting the helmet — with some Victorian little league c clubs, including Macedon, Camberwell, Caulfield and Bentleigh, already making it m mandatory.

Macedon Junior Football Club mother Angela Town said she finds games, and training, more enjoyable as a spectator knowing that her sons, Jet, 10, and Fox, 7, have an added la layer of protection against head in injuries. Ms Town said she wouldn’t le let her children play at a club w without helmets.

“It concerns me to see other t teams playing without them ... if it’s going to keep them safe I think every child should be wearing th them,” she said.

“I really would reconsider having my kids playing at all if they didn’t have the head gear.

“At Macedon Cats it’s no helmet, no play or train. They even have spares at training in case extra kids want to join in.”

A paper released by the Australian Institute of Sport and Australian Medical Association in May said helmets were “valuable for the prevention of other (nonconcussion) types of traumatic head injuries such as skull fracture”.

Studies show helmets may make little difference in preventing concussion but were an effective safeguard against head trauma more broadly.

Ms Pierce said any protection footy helmets gave made the move a “no brainier”.

“Sadly what we have at the moment is AFL players that generally only start wearing helmets after they’ve already had a number of concussions,” she said.

“We know that kids will follow and emulate their heroes,

“If we had some players willing to be champions and start wearing them as a preventive thing that would be wonderful.”

But many sports medicos remain unconvinced by the helmet push.

Long-time Geelong Cats doctor Hugh Seward, now chief of the AFL Medical Officers Association, said the best way to protect players was to manage their injuries better and adjust the rules and tackling techniques of the game.

“With the evidence we have at the moment, it’s not recommended by any of the authorities involved in football,” Dr Seward said.

“If it was going to be of value we would be promoting it.”

AFL Barwon chief Lee Hartman said the league followed the advice of the AFL and Sports Medicine Australia in framing its policies.

Ms Pierce said she has been disappointed to see leaders at all levels of the AFL organis- ation “choose to ignore a building body of evidence” that supports the wearing of helmets.

“We’ve got to stop calling them concussions and we’ve got to start calling them mild brain injuries because that’s what they are,” she said.

“How are we so concerned about children’s teeth but we’re not equally as concerned with protecting their brains?

“It won’t necessarily prevent the brain injury but what you would hope is that it would minimise the level of damage caused.”

Other policy prescriptions to avoid what some regard as the time bomb issue of football head trauma include automatic playing bans for players who get a bad knock.

The AIS-AMA paper, underpinned by the motto “if in doubt, sit them out”, emphasised the need for careful management of concussed athletes.

Ms Pierce said, while she would like to see the same policy embraced at AFL level, it’s more likely this particular change will occur “from the grassroots up”.

University of Melbourne Associate Professor Alan Pearce, who is researching the effects of concussion on former and current footballers for the AFL, said: “Helmets are really good in protecting the skull from fracturing but they don’t stop the brain from moving inside the skull.

“All the literature in the scientific and medical journals to date are saying there is no evidence helmets protect the brain from concussion. They’re just protecting the skull bone itself.”

Brain Injury Australia executive officer Nick Rushworth said a lot of work was going into developing better helmets, but there was none available that prevented concussion.

He was supportive of kids wearing “soft-shell” helmets on the footy field, but urged them and their parents to understand what protection was being offered.

“With kids it's a good idea to be putting scrum caps on them if they’re playing AFL as long as everyone, children included but particularly parents, are absolutely clear about what kind of injuries those scrum caps can prevent,” he said.

“If you’re talking about the physical consequences of impact forces, fracture and laceration and so on, then of course it can have preventive effects in that regard.

“In terms of the brain that is inside the skull encased in fluid there isn’t a great deal that any technology currently on the market can do about that,” Mr Rushworth said.

“Sadly, what we have at the moment is AFL players that generally only start wearing helmets after they’ve already had a number of concussions.” JACQUI PIERCE