Friend's Concussions

[gragra]

The difference is from a legal position they have to control the illegal hits, but obviously they cant stop the legal collisions that cause concussion. Unfortunately the game doesnt exist if you want a 100% safe game. A bit like the argument whether boxing should be allowed. Zero tolerance to injury means no contact games at all! Although with boxing the idea is to inflict injury with a knockout! At the end of the day concussions un league will continue at a maybe marginally lower rate....

[Kingbilly]

The problem though, Zac, is that most concussions - and I think the figure is around 75% - are NOT the result of foul play. This is the great unspoken truth that isn't allowed to enter the discussion. They are the result of head collisions, heads accidentally colliding with knees or hips, heads hitting the ground, etc. So the issue isn't really about cracking down on "foul play"" -- because foul play has very little to do with concussion. (Of course, there are exceptions, as we saw with Puffinstuff's concussion on Sunday.)

So when you say "the game has to do something" - the only thing it can do is to make contact with the body illegal. And if they do that, obviously we don't have a game anymore.

While ever you have 100kg men running full pelt at one another, concussions are going to occur, whether the tackles are legal or not.

I don't think any of Jake's career ending concussions were the result of foul play. They were all accidents, as far as I can recall.

What is worth noting is that a lot is from poor technique often due to fatigue.
We seem to be winning the battle to realise concussion needs to be managed at the upper levels. Park footy is still a bit hit and miss.
NSWRL for example is constantly improving things like baseline testing. Its just really hard to get stuff like that down to the grass roots level and it is needed.
Concussions are going to occur as you say Tom, and we need to do the best we can to manage the frequency and also the treatment