ADRIAN LAM believes there is a grey area concerning the new flashing mouthguards used by Super League players, which alert medical teams to a potential head injury.
Instrumented mouthguards are not new to Rugby League and have been used in the top flight since 2022 to better understand head impacts.
However, from the start of this season a real-time trigger, designed to alert medical teams immediately when a player experiences a very high force to the head, has been introduced.
Such a trigger went off in Leigh Leopards’ 22-16 round-four home defeat to Catalans Dragons, with Gareth O’Brien on the receiving end of a big hit which set off his mouthguard.
However, O’Brien was adamant that he had not been hit around the head, initially refusing to come off and even helping set up a try before being withdrawn for a head-injury assessment.
Lam has called for the issue to be looked at, saying: “It’s the first time a flash mouthguard has been introduced and we are learning with that.
“At the start of the season, they said players would be taken off if they had taken a hit of a certain G-force level of contact.
“That’s all well and good, but this is to get a feel for it this year and see how we move on with it.The timing wasn’t good for us at the weekend.
“In the last 15 minutes the mouthguard was flashing but the player, by protocol, has to leave the field immediately for a HIA, just as they would with a concussion.
“We are really supportive of the idea but I think there’s a grey area there. The priority for me is that the player is well and in a good position.
“I felt Gaz left the field with no symptoms or signs whatsoever. His feedback immediately was that he was just tackled hard, but he had to sit through 15 minutes of an HIA, which took us until the end of the game.
“I felt frustrated at the time that we couldn’t get him back on sooner. The grey area is if the player is going off the field with a mouthguard flashing but he has no symptoms whatsoever, then there should be something we can do to bring the player back sooner.”