Beaten Brown is still reeling

CONCUSSED STAR SIDELINED

CONOr O’Shea has revealed his concern at the increasing force of rugby’s collisions after harlequins and england full back mike Brown was consigned to even more time on the sidelines to recover from the latest high- profile head injury.

Brown has not played since the final round of the rBS 6 Nations on march 21, is still suffering headaches after a week-long holiday in dubai and no closer to being declared symptom-free.

The episode raises questions about whether the 29-year-old was brought back too early for england’s titledecider against France, having been knocked out in the Test against italy five weeks earlier following a crunching collision with andrea masi.

‘it’s a concern because i don’t like someone coming in with something you can’t diagnose,’ said O’Shea, Quins’ director of rugby. ‘Sometimes a physio will sit you down and say, “it’s six to 12 weeks out”. here it could be tomorrow or it could be whenever — we don’t have a timescale. There’s no doubt that a decade or even a year ago Browny would be back out on the pitch.

‘You want to see the gladiatorial side of things — the big hits that we’ve all grown up with. it was once a badge of honour that you got up and got on with it. But at least we’re now aware. is it a concern for the game that we’re seeing collisions of the nature that we are? Yes, it has to be.’

Brown will have played just six of his club’s last 19 games after sitting out of the coming weekend, and his england team-mates Joe marler and Chris robshaw have featured in only eight of the last 18. Northampton have ruled out George North, who is suffering from his own concussion problems after being knocked out in three different collisions, until the end of the month and O’Shea must also deal with the absence of one of his marquee players.

‘You can look at a succession of events for George North, whereas this is a follow-on of symptoms from one event,’ said O’Shea. ‘against italy it was as big a hit as i’ve seen someone take. it was quite frankly a monstrous hit. i was pretty worried when i saw it live.

‘is it tough on us having the england full back for six out of 19 games and still indeterminate? Yes, but there are more important things than rugby.’