John Fogarty: It’s time for the GAA to update their foggy brain injury protocols

Mayo’s Lee Keegan is helped off the pitch by Dr Seán Moffatt after a heavy collision with Cork’s Eoin Cadogan in a league clash in Páirc Uí Rinn in 2016. Picture: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile

Type Bríd Stack into Google and its search bar predicts you want to see footage of her injury.

We sure don’t — an ashen-faced Cora Staunton as she looked at her stricken team-mate painted the picture — but seemingly plenty did on the basis of the algorithm it had generated.

Thankfully, the former Cork star is on the mend and thankfully there doesn’t appear to be a video nasty of the collision in the Greater Western Sydney Giants’ practice game against the Adelaide Crows that left her with a broken bone in her neck. Crows’ player Ebony Marinoff has been cited for the tackle on Stack, which prompted an ambulance to be called onto the field and the game to be brought to a premature end. Incidentally, type Marinoff’s name into Google and the word tackle follows.

For most sports mad people, news of Stack’s worrying hospitalisation in Adelaide marked the start of their Sunday; the end of it came with another horrific injury to the NFL’s best quarter-back, Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes in the third quarter of their play-off game against Cleveland Browns.

The troubling sight of a concussed Mahomes staggering as he was helped to his feet after the tackle by Mack Wilson really should be enough for him to sit out next weekend’s NFC Conference championship against the Buffalo Bills, never mind the rest of that win over the Browns.

However, despite his fitness having to cleared by an independent neurologist after the franchise’s medical staff it would be a surprise if he isn’t togged out in Arrowhead Stadium. “He’s doing great right now which is a real positive as we looked at this,” reported his coach Andy Reid afterwards. “Passed all the deals that he needed to pass so we’ll see where it goes from here.”

Whatever about the NFL’s dubious attitude to concussion down through the years, at least Mahomes was tended to relatively quickly after the collision. In Gaelic games, there remains the red tape of referees having to permit a team doctor onto the field to examine an injured player.

That is further enshrined by the new concussion substitute motion the standing playing rules and medical, scientific and welfare committees have put forward to Central Council for approval this month before it is expected to be voted on at Congress.

The main tenet of it reads: “A player who sustains a suspected head injury, if instructed by the referee, shall temporarily leave the field of play for further assessment before the player’s fitness to return is determined.”

Needless to say, that instruction should come from the most qualified person to do so. Yet a large oversight of GAA rules pertaining to injuries is the responsibility heaped on referees.

Here’s what the rulebook states about allowing doctors onto the field of play: “The referee may give his permission to a team medical officer or one authorised official to enter the field of play to examine an injured player.”

The wisest doctors, referees and fourth officials pay no mind to that one just as they ignored the GAA’s insistence on there being only one medic per team on the sideline eight years ago.

Kildare team doctor Danny Mulvihill, chairman of the Gaelic Games Doctors Association at the time, said: “We have a professional and ethical responsibility to look after players. This is interfering with our medical practice as it was established without any discussion or consultation.”

Originally put forward by Offaly club St Rynagh’s last year, the motion empowers the referee to make a judgement call on a medical matter as a way of ensuring teams don’t abuse the rule to waste time or bring in more than their regular complement of five substitutes.

Yet the threat of teams stretching the concussion rule beyond credulity as some have done the blood sub rule pales in comparison to leaving a player on the field and putting himself at risk like Dublin defender Rory O’Carroll was following his concussion in the 2013 All-Ireland SFC final.

In 2015, O’Carroll queried in The Irish Times why then Ireland captain Rory Best was allowed to return to action in a Six Nations game against France seven days after suffering a concussion in the competition opener with Italy when IRFU guidelines advised rest of a minimum 14 days post-concussion.

Mahomes finds himself in the exact same situation this week. Were he a GAA player, he too could be back for next weekend as only seven days are required providing medical clearance has been given, whereas it’s 14 days for women and those under the age of 18.

Such distinctions between the sexes aren’t made in other sports. A suspected brain injury is a suspected brain injury.

All-Stars must have a little suspense

After the furore about David Clifford being included in the All-Stars nominations for a fourth year in a row (2-36, 2-22 from play in eight 2020 games, supposedly isn’t enough to warrant one), there were also complaints about the composition of the hurling nominations.

When people saw hurler of the year nominee Tony Kelly, a former nominee Jamie Barron, the 2018 winner Cian Lynch and Will O’Donoghue shortlisted for the second year in succession, their obvious reaction was four into two doesn’t go.

Alongside Gearóid Hegarty and Stephen Bennett for the top individual award, Kelly is a cert for an award but he might not yet be picked in midfield. The same goes for Lynch, who played at centre-forward in three of Limerick’s five SHC outings.

As an aside, midfielder Darragh O’Donovan was the one Limerick All-Ireland final starter to miss out but to begin three games as he did in the Championship was an incredible achievement never mind his strength of performances given his hand injury. Yesterday, he underwent surgery on the problem in Santry.

We mentioned in Saturday’s nominations report that the selectors have the power to switch players to different positions. Just like getting the best 15 is the priority next month, getting the best 45 was the objective last week and with the abundance of quality forward performances, the overflow could be accommodated in the midfield nominees.

The repositioning reflects the fluidity of the game and adds to the intrigue ahead of the awards ceremony on February 20. Hence why the rules were changed in 2015 to move away from line specific nominations to simply defenders and forwards. A little suspense does no harm.

Éamonn Ryan’s beauty in a stranger’s words

It says so much about Éamonn Ryan that Welsh tenor Ryan Morgan, who was asked to sing at his funeral, was moved to write a tribute to a man he did not know.

An abbreviated version of his Facebook post reads as follows: “The reason I’m writing the post is to recount my feelings as I drove out of Ballingeary at the rear of the cortege. Along every street of the village, outside every house, scores of people were gathered to pay respects on Mr Ryan’s final journey. This continued through the countryside at every gate and crossroads. Through Inchigeelagh it seemed the whole population were lining the streets, masked and apart but conjoined in paying their respects. A score or so of young ladies lined the Main Street attired in Cork jerseys. Outside every house on the drive to the N22, mile upon mile, the Cork colours were flying to signal Mr Ryan’s onward journey.

“The things which matter to us we still hold fast. The rhythms of our lives may be currently muted and masked, but they are still audible. Our spirits still dance to their drum. We may be physically distant from one another, but the golden threads of meaning which bind us to our humanity are as strong as ever. Stretched, but not fraying. This was evidenced to me today on the solemn but uplifting drive through the winter sunshine sparkling off the wellspring of the Lee. Care, compassion, respect, love, acknowledgement, and meaning are all still present.

“RIP Éamonn Ryan. I did not know you or of you, but nevertheless your influence on the world has meant something to me today.”

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