Tigers’ Murphy defends club handling of retired Ryan’s head injuries

GEORDAN MURPHY has defended Leicester Tigers’ handling of former player Dominic Ryan, who announced his retirement due to concussion on Saturday.

In the wake of a 49-33 victory over Newcastle, his first game as interim head coach after the departure of Matt O’Connor, Murphy extended his sympathies to the 28-year-old.

“Dominic’s a great bloke – a friend of mine – and it’s always sad when players have to retire,” he said. “It’s a difficult one and it’s obviously going to be more prevalent in the game with concussions and what’s going forward.”

After coming off the bench for Leicester against Northampton Saints a year ago yesterday, Ryan collided with the elbow of opponent George North and stayed down.

Following an assessment from two Tigers medics with referee JP Doyle in close attendance, it was determined that he was only winded.

Injury

He joined the subsequent scrum without undergoing a head injury assessment (HIA) and completed the match.

Murphy was asked whether Leicester could have acted differently at the time.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “I think there will be a lot of criticism. I was actually one of the first guys to Dominic on the field when the media said he was concussed but I spoke to him and he wasn’t. He was fine.

“He was a little bit confused at the next lineout because we had just lost Mike Williams [to a yellow card] and he didn’t know his role. That’s where the misconception of him being knocked out was.”

In an interview with ‘The Irish Times’, Ryan described how he fell unconscious following a “gentle tap” from Tom Youngs in the 18th minute of a match against Harlequins two weeks later.

Leicester physios ordered a HIA. Ryan failed it. Having suffered two previous concussions during his final months at Leinster, he was stood down for 12 weeks.

When Ryan was involved in the squad to face Castres in January, he suffered from dizziness during a 55-minute appearance and actively avoided carrying the ball into contact.

When the back-rower was replaced and told a physio about his condition, he was asked “why the hell didn’t you tell us?” and broke down in tears.

Ryan did not represent Tigers again and, at the end of last season, the club released him. Another meeting with the doctor then convinced Ryan to bow out of professional rugby.