One of the things I did not say in my earlier post was that I did not consider the missing of the incident to be deliberate - things like that happen. Indeed when our society discussed this a while ago the SRU folks who came showed a clip of a Glasgow game when I think it was the hooker had a head injury and that was not initially noticed until someone looked at his GPS trace and he was taken off.
However the problem for me is that some doctor has apparently come to the conclusion that there was no concussion in order for SBW to not require to go through the GRTP programme which would have ruled him out for the following week (which I know Ian thinks should have happened). Now I am not a clinician and not involved in assessing SBW, but I know enough about clinical liability to suggest that the doctor who made that decision needs to be on really sure grounds otherwise he could be referred to the authorities and was Dr Chapman. The other issue is that when head injuries are such a big thing, it seems to me that some very positive explanation of how that conclusion was reached (ie that there was no concussion) would be helpful for the game as a whole. It is much easier for a ref to say to a player with w head knock, sorry your game is over for the next 3 weeks if that is what happens in showbiz rugby or there are clear explanations of why it is apparently treated differently.
However the problem for me is that some doctor has apparently come to the conclusion that there was no concussion in order for SBW to not require to go through the GRTP programme which would have ruled him out for the following week (which I know Ian thinks should have happened). Now I am not a clinician and not involved in assessing SBW, but I know enough about clinical liability to suggest that the doctor who made that decision needs to be on really sure grounds otherwise he could be referred to the authorities and was Dr Chapman. The other issue is that when head injuries are such a big thing, it seems to me that some very positive explanation of how that conclusion was reached (ie that there was no concussion) would be helpful for the game as a whole. It is much easier for a ref to say to a player with w head knock, sorry your game is over for the next 3 weeks if that is what happens in showbiz rugby or there are clear explanations of why it is apparently treated differently.