Henshaw return was reckless says doctor
The carnage in Cardiff last Sunday added up to a Six Nations record, one which the organisers will most definitely be rushing to shout from the rooftops. By the time Wales and Ireland had finished leaving the old game in a more battered state than they found it, five players had been taken off for Head Injury Assessments (HIA’s), a euphemistic acronym for suspected brain damage. Five, all in the same match, fell into that category over a period which worked out at one every eight minutes.
Such a fact will not be found in the blizzard of statistics churned out after every match even if some figures are of dubious relevance. Multiple HIA’s are more likely to be found swept under that part of the carpet reserved for subjects liable to damage the image of the game. “Move Along,” says the warning. “Nothing to see here.”
Four of the five failed their tests last weekend – Johnny Williams and Hallam Amos of Wales, James Ryan and Johnny Sexton from Ireland. The one exception, Leinster centre Robbie Henshaw, returned to action last Sunday and will be in the thick of it against France in Dublin this afternoon.
Dr Barry O’Driscoll, a leading authority on concussion who resigned from World Rugby’s medical committee nine years ago in protest at what he saw as their failure to take tougher preventative action, believes Henshaw “didn’t know where he was”.
“In the 52nd minute he is involved in the first of three heavy tackles in rapid succession. After the first, he takes ten seconds to get up. After the next tackle, he was returning from a grossly off-side position when he tackled the Welsh No.8 standing at the side of a ruck. Penalty.
“Then they decide to take him off and he comes back on ten minutes later. The laws of the game ever since I was on World Rugby state that a player suffering from concussion or a suspicion of concussion, comes off and stays off.
“It is ironic that Henshaw, stage by stage, showed the symptoms of suspected concussion. One is a delay in getting back on your feet, another is confusion. Yet they sent him back on.
“The fact that a player is deemed not to show symptoms of concussion after ten minutes doesn’t mean he isn’t concussed. No test can be done on the sidelines in ten minutes that rules out concussion.
“We are talking about brain injuries and we are taking chances with someone’s brain. There is a price to be paid for it as we have seen recently from high-profile players suffering from the early onset of dementia.
“The game should be very concerned about what happened in Cardiff last week. It’s the application of basic physics, heavier men accelerating into collisions against other heavier men. The body and the brain is trying to say: ‘You shouldn’t be doing this’.”
Next weekend’s break ensures that the quartet rendered hors de combat will have had a three-week rest when the tournament resumes at the end of the month. Ironically, three weeks used to be the mandatory recovery period before the sport went professional in 1995.
Of the four, most concern will inevitably centre on Sexton. “I am very glad, for his sake, that he is having a rest,’’ says O’Driscoll. “It should be an automatic two or three week break for concussion. Two concussions in the same season and it should be three months.
“Has anyone from the IRFU or World Rugby sat down with Johnny and asked him: ‘Do you know the possible consequences?’ This needs to be hammered home and not hidden from the players as happened in the NFL and they ended up paying $765m in respect of former players suffering from brain damage.’’
“The game should be very concerned about what happened in Cardiff”