European Champions Cup organisers have set up a player welfare advisory group to ensure clubs follow the concussion protocols laid down by World Rugby and will punish any who do not.
The move comes after the former Clermont Auvergne second-row Jamie Cudmore launched a legal action against the club. Cudmore claims the French side allowed him to play on when he suffered a serious head injury during the Champions Cup semi-final against Saracens in 2015 and did so again two weeks later when he was knocked out at the start of the final against Toulon.
“One of the most important things in the near future is to get all this right,” said Vincent Gaillard, the director general of European Professional Club Rugby. “It is about World Rugby, the players and the clubs and it is a complicated situation. We are engaging with Jamie to see how we can support him in raising awareness about the issue itself and for stronger protocols.
“We are making sure we have access to more intelligence and capability and we have constituted a player welfare advisory group to get things right in our competition. We are looking at having a greater number of independent doctors across our matches. We need people who are aware of the issue and we have to involve the leagues because they are stakeholders.”
Asked if clubs who flouted the protocols would be fined, he replied: “It is a possibility.”
Simon Halliday, EPCR’s chairman, said prevention had to be the key. “We are sleepwalking into a problem. In my view as an ex-player, high tackles and the clearing out of stationary players at the ruck is absolutely unacceptable. World Rugby has to act immediately because it is why we are getting more head injuries.
“We do not want to end up in the same place as the NFL [American football]. An assessment is being done on players from my era but then it was more about punches and kicks than impacts. We take concussion very seriously and are desperate for leadership, direction and guidance from World Rugby on the disciplinary process: good statements are being made but I would like to see some action.
“You can’t ask everyone to deal with things in isolation under the heading of best practice. There is a world governing body. We do our best, we’ve just set this body up and we care about it passionately. We would support any sort of initiatives and we are actively looking at supporting initiatives as a group outside the tournaments themselves in terms of player welfare.”
The Sale director of rugby, Steve Diamond, questioned the head injury assessment protocol last month, saying a player had only to receive a slap to be forced off the pitch. “Maybe I was a bit headstrong,” he said, “but the point I was trying to make was that in the Premiership games are stopping every two or three minutes and there are more people wearing bibs on the field than aren’t.
“The most important thing is looking after players and, as a coach, I have no say on whether a player who has suffered a head injury may return to the pitch. I am trying to build a franchise in Manchester and so many breaks in the game are not doing the product any good.”
