Tiusue available after concussion mix-up

» GEORGE Skivington revealed there was a communication mix-up over whether Albert Tuisue was concussed against Bath on Saturday which led to him being substituted unnecessarily.

Having beaten Bath 21-17, the Gloucester head coach can reflect on the incident with a smile and pledge to learn and improve from it. The further upside for the Cherry and Whites is the big Fijian number eight is available to face Bristol Bears at Kingsholm on Saturday.

Skivington explained: “He passed all the HIA tests. It was actually an error [which saw him replaced] that Albert was pretty upset about but it was an error in how it was communicated.

“I wasn’t quite sure about what was going on so I just took him off the field basically. I decided if there was any doubt we would just get Jordy Reid on and I pulled Albert at half time.”

Summer signing Tuisue appeared to take a blow to the head moments before he was yellow-carded for an off-the-ball, no-arms tackle on Bath flanker Tom Ellis. While in the sin bin, he completed the Premiership’s head injury assessment tests and passed.

But Tuisue did return to the pitch shortly before half time but was replaced during the interval.

Skivington continued: “It turns out we didn’t need to do that, we need to get our communication a bit better amongst ourselves because thankfully we still won the game but I might have been a little bit more upset if we had lost.

“From Albert’s point of view I have just made a heavy-handed call because I am not quite sure of what is going on so I wanted to just get on with it and I take that approach with pretty much everything I do, with selection and around the club. Sometimes I get it wrong.”

Skivington continued: “We don’t mess around with concussions, communication lines weren’t great so I thought let’s just get Jordy on. We will sort out the communications moving forward but you would rather be overcautious than go the other way.”

This summer World Rugby brought in new concussion protocols extending the standdown period for players who have failed a HIA from six days to 12 days, however Skivington confirmed his Fijian powerhouse is available to play this weekend.

He said: “He has passed all the protocols and it has been reviewed.”