You will remember, back in the day, how you could see a league player completely pole-axed with a coat-hanger by an opponent – dropped at his feet like a quivering sack of spuds – only for various QCs, aided by so-called bio-mechanical experts, to argue on Monday night at Phillip St that it was no such thing. See, if we put this in slo-mo, and closely examine the point of impact, together with the angle that it strikes, you can see that my client was actually in George St, posting a letter to his Aunt Sally in Gunning at that very moment, and it only looks like he creamed him. The two leaguies knew it was nonsense, as did the QCs and the experts, and so too did the judiciary, at least mostly. Mercifully, those days seem to have mostly gone with the new league system favouring those who 'fess up to the bleeding obvious, plead guilty, and stop wasting everyone's precious time.
There remains one area, however, where transparent nonsense goes on, in a particularly dangerous field – where otherwise honest people are seen to maintain complete nonsense – and it is an area that requires the NRL's urgent attention.
For you see, while it is one thing for the NRL to have introduced their highly commendable concussion protocols, requiring players that have been badly hit to be immediately removed from the field and stay there, it is quite another to have the people who administer that protocol actually observe it. There can be no better example of this than the situation with the Souths halfback, Adam Reynolds last Sunday.
Just 18 minutes into the match against the Roosters, he goes in for a tackle on second-rower Aiden Guera in the 18th minute after stumbling several times following a mistimed tackle, only for his head to come into fiercely hard, if inadvertent, contact with Guera's hard-rising knee. Obvious to everyone that knows anything about concussion, Reynold's brain has just hit the inside of his skull and it is time for lights out. The Souths trainer, Eddie Farah, recognises it and ushers him from the field. Obviously, under the concussion rule, he must do this for his own safety – and, I might say, the legal safety of his employers, Souths, and the presiding body, the NRL, who owe him a legal duty of care. (The moral duty of care is even more obvious, but let's leave that for the moment.)
But wait!
Eleven minutes later, wouldn't you know it – after the Roosters have scored three tries in the interim, and the situation is desperate – Reynolds is back on the field! Yes, folks, according to Souths, he passed the test and wasn't concussed at all!
That hit on the head? Only looked like that.
The fact that he couldn't walk without assistance? Musta been the flu.
That glazed look in his eyes? Well, let's not forget he's a leaguie, and as you know they can look a bit spacey at the best of times.
I call bullshit.
I call this for what it is – an absolutely classic example of a club putting the importance of victory ahead of the welfare of their players.
I say it is exactly the same as George Smith in the Wallabies two years ago – pole-axed and clearly concussed, only to disgracefully return to the field five minutes later after passing a ludicrous "concussion test."
I say that if Souths maintain their position that because he passed the concussion test he was actually okay to take the field, it is clear that their test is as hopeless as the rugby union test.
I say to the NRL they need an integrity test instead. Have all of their officials lined up, and have them watch the footage of Reynolds going down.
Now ask them, straight out. Is this bloke concussed, or not?
I defy anyone, with integrity, to look at this footage and say straight faced that he is ok.
Reynolds knows he's concussed.
The trainer knows he's concussed.
The commentators know he's concussed – "He's got his wobbly boots on."
And the groaning crowd knows it. One look at that hit on the big screen, and the way he walks off, and no-one is any doubt.
Who else knows is the Sydney Roosters doctor Ameer Ibrahim, whose remarks upon Reynolds return are commendably strong, and addressed to the NRL's new chief medical officer Paul Bloomfield.
"I said to Dr Bloomfield that I have to face my football department and there is no doubt that they are going to ask me about that," Ibrahim said. "What if it was Mitchell Pearce and he gets the same injury? It promoted debate on the sideline and I was having a frank discussion with my physio, saying 'what are we going to do now if that happens to us?'"
Exactly. The whole point is that, this early in the season, if the NRL allows such flagrant breach of their concussion protocols to go unpunished, then they have nowhere to go for the rest of the season. If the Reynolds episode is not a clear case of concussion, just what does it take?
If Souths can get away with putting him back on the field, just what does a club need to do to be punished.
This is the NRL's own integrity test. If they don't punish Souths, they don't have any, and their concussion protocol is a farce.
