THERE is an estimated one concussion every two games in Super League, according to data provided by Professor of Sports Physiology and Performance at Leeds Beckett University Ben Jones.
Jones went through a detailed presentation about the current research being done into head knocks – something which is becoming increasingly prevalent in the game of rugby league.
In recent seasons, rugby league has been keen to enforce player welfare with initiatives such as Head Injury Assessments, concussion protocols and the scrapping of the hectic Easter schedule.
Now Jones has reported his and others’ scientific findings into the issue of concussion and head knocks.
“The scientific literature has evolved; studies have been done and found worldwide, we feel like we know something now but those studies are only just being published,” Jones said.
“It’s really important that we are acknowledging that this is nothing new. We have had a really good concussion monitor at Super League and Championship for a number of years.
“Concussions themselves are expressed per 1000 hours, so in Super League we get a rate of about 15 concussions per 1000 hours. That means there is one concussion every two games, with over 80% of concussions coming in matches.
“We’ve been monitoring every concussion across Super League, Championship, League One and the community game.
“The government has set up a concussion inquiry into sport and they have a keen interest in this as well as the fact that there is a strong scientific community working together on this.
“The next step is to how can we reduce concussions? We know that the biggest risk of a concussion is a tackle and contact.
“What we’re now starting to do is start to look at the propensity of a tackle based on different things. We looked at just under 200 concussions between 2018 and 2022. 70% happened to the tackler and 30% to the ball carrier.
“To understand what the highest risk of concussion is, we compared the concussive tackles with non concussive tackles to understand the risk of something happening and how it happens with concussive exposure in the contact load.
“There was a paper published recently and it compared over 7500 former male football players to a population group of just over 23,000.
“It showed from the retired players that 5% had a risk of neurodegenerative disease as opposed to 1.6% of the non players.
“Repeated heading impact exposure resulted in a higher risk of neurodegenerative diseases but it wasn’t the only risk.”
In order to combat high impact collisions, data has been collected through instrumented mouthguards.
“Instrumented mouthguards are a new technology, but we’ve been trying to do this for 20 years across the scientific community,” Jones continued.
“We can now measure head accelerations – every time a player’s head moves. Ultimately, the instrumented mouthguard is fixed to the teeth and any head movement above a certain threshold can quantify that.
“We’re quantifying our risk. Everything we are trying to do around concussion is to reduce the number of concussions and identify the big impacts.”
Despite the potentially scary message, Jones was eager to emphasise just how few of the impacts seen in games are great ones.
“If we can have less big impacts and keep the game as it is then that’s great for the game. To reassure people, 44% of these impacts were less than 10G. A 10G head acceleration is a voluntary movement, running sidestepping etc. 10G is low.
“Anything above 60G are your big ones. 90% of our impacts are less than 20G so this isn’t the case of us being hugely concerned.
“It just allows us to be really specific, where the big ones are and we’ve got to understand what they are, why they happen and how we can mitigate those in the future.
“We will continue to do the work and anyone that gets concussed will be identified and removed from the game.
“The instrumental mouthguard is huge in subconcussive and head exposure and to understand that more we’ve developed a law modification of nine rules which we’ve sent to Super League clubs.”
However, despite the revolutionary technology set up to enhance player welfare, former Salford Red Devils prop, Greg Burke, revealed on the Sky Sports Round Table podcast that most of his former teammates refused to wear one.
“At Salford, I’d say 10% of the team wore them,” Burke said.
“Everyone got one fitted and they’d go ‘I’ve never worn one, I’m not wearing it’ which I sort of get, but it’s not about how you feel now, it’s for the greater good.
“You might have a big collision in training and then it’s ‘did he have a gumshield in?’ and it’s ‘no, he doesn’t like wearing them, so oh well, we don’t know.'”
It’s obvious that a change in attitudes is also needed to go along with the new technology.