This is supposed to be the season of wise men but rugby union, just at the moment, has lost its marbles. How else to explain the decision not to issue any sanction against anyone connected with George North’s recent botched head‑injury saga? At a time when player welfare is meant to be twinkling at the top of everyone’s tree, the game is in danger of sliding back into the self-policing dark ages.
The only good news is that North himself is apparently OK and cleared to resume playing for Northampton this Friday. Good luck to him – goodness knows, he needs a dollop of it. But when a player with a well-chronicled history of concussion is mistakenly allowed back on to the field at such a sensitive stage in the sport’s history, it would seem inevitable some kind of official admonishment would follow. The lack of meaningful action by Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Football Union does not reflect well on either body.
The most obvious explanation is that, legally, the guardians of the English game were worried about creating a dangerous precedent. That tricky junction where sport, medicine and business collides is notoriously hard to navigate, as the frequent delays in releasing the panel’s verdict underlined. Telling a pitchside member of the medical staff he or she was at fault is not as easy as showing a player a yellow card. The potentially far‑reaching professional implications of doing so would appear to have saved individuals, and Northampton, from any punishment.
This despite the fact that, in the key sections, the report could scarcely have painted a more uncomfortable picture. There was, the panel found, already enough video evidence to raise suspicions that North had lost consciousness, even without the additional clips taken from behind the incident which “confirm beyond any doubt that the player was likely to have been unconscious”.
Nor did anyone in the Northampton set-up, having had time to reflect and catch up with the tell-tale replays being widely shown on the big screen, think it prudent to withdraw North even after he had returned to the field. The eight minutes he spent off the pitch was also shorter than the recommended period. Those in charge of monitoring players for concussion, meanwhile, seem to be still getting acquainted with the system.
This was only the fifth game in which Northampton’s pitchside video reviewer had been in the role; along with the lead physio, they were unaware of replays of the incident being broadcast to all and sundry. The Wi-Fi link providing pictures to the match doctor, furthermore, was working fine.
So much for no one being able to see the right clips, which was the club’s initial defence.
The conclusion, in short, was that unfortunate human error rather than negligence was to blame. No one disputes the medical staff were at least attempting to do their best for North. A cock-up, m’lud, rather than a conspiracy. Premiership Rugby made the point that no similar enquiry has ever taken place anywhere else in the world, stressing the nine recommendations will help make the game safer in the long run. Maybe, particularly the directive requiring doctors in future to review video footage a second time even after a head injury assessment has been passed to make 100% sure there was no fleeting loss of consciousness. But what if North had ended up with something worse than a stiff neck? And what if something similar happens this weekend? A suspended fine or perhaps the threat of a points deduction would have sent a rather stronger message about the importance of recognising and removing players suspected of a possible brain injury which, after all, is what concussion is.
Instead the playing field grows ever more uneven. At a time when there is an increasing crackdown on the slightest on-field indiscretions, intentional or otherwise, no one is ever at fault behind the scenes. The inconsistency of rugby’s punishments is maddening to those within the game and baffling to those outside. What is the more heinous crime: fractionally mistiming a tackle or failing to show the necessary duty of care to a professional athlete under your club’s supervision?
While players are being judged on outcome rather than intent, others are being given the benefit of the doubt. It should be absurdly simple: players lying prone on the grass with their eyes shut are not having a pre-Christmas snooze. Of course North is going to leap back up and say he is fine. That is what all rugby players of character do. Never mind the state of the game or how much their club need to win. What matters is protecting the player from himself.
It is a crying shame some within rugby still cannot see the wood for the Christmas trees.
