Doctors should automatically err on side of caution and remove players with suspected concussion
Asking 100 elite American footballers, the Association Press discovered 39 of them did not believe medics had their best interests at heart, while another 14 either weren’t sure or refused to comment.
The more experienced athletes, those plying their trade four years or more, were most sceptical, 65% of them refusing to defend their franchise GPs.
Oliver Stone’s movie Any Given Sunday may have been an exaggerated portrayal of the sport but based on the poll’s findings the unscrupulous Dr Harvey Mandrake character, played superbly by James Woods, may not be all that removed from reality.
Contributing to the survey, Detroit Lions player Don Carey said: “It’s their (doctors’) job to make you playable. There’s a lot of pressure on them to keep guys on the field.”
Mandrake was actually based on an Oakland and LA Raiders doctor who operated with the franchise for 25 years. The late Dr Robert Rosenfeld, according to his former colleague Dr Robert Huizenga in his book “You’re Okay, It’s Just a Bruise” which formed the premise for the film, was guilty of several cases of improper medical treatment to keep “the assets” playing.
The ideology of the amoral medic is perfectly illustrated when Mandrake is confronted about his behaviour by Miami Sharks coach, Al Pacino’s Tony D’Amato, and realises his time is up.
“They couldn’t take a p*** in the morning without the pills. You want to play innocent? F*** your innocence! You don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask the question. I didn’t have to ask him because I knew the answer. These men are football players, they are gladiators. They will not live with shame, like you. And long ago, they made that choice. Not you, not you. Not me. And I’m not going to take responsibility for standing between them.”
Were the same question put to 100 inter-county GAA players, a resounding majority would respond that team doctors have their backs.
Medics aren’t just practitioners in Gaelic games: they are confidantes, they are friends and they are supporters.
The same goes in most sports but the intimacy is particularly acute in Gaelic games where often the panel and medical team share a sense of loyalty because of birthright.
If a GAA doctor is guilty of a fault in their treatment, it’s showing too much kindness.
After Sunday’s Division 1 game in Páirc Uí Rinn, Mayo manager Stephen Rochford speculated Lee Keegan may have insisted on remaining on the pitch after his head collision with Eoin Cadogan because he was captain. Of course, that may not have been the situation.
Regardless, the pleas and protests of players having suffered such trauma should be flatly ignored.
Along with his cousin and physio Liam, Mayo team doctor Sean Moffatt is highly respected by players. On Newstalk’s Off The Ball prior to Sunday’s game, former Mayo manager James Horan, having worked with the pair during his time in charge, spoke glowingly of them renewing their association with the panel this year after Liam wasn’t involved in 2015.
Dr Moffatt knows the dangers of concussion as well as he appreciates the problems in assessing it. “If in doubt, take them out,” he said at an update of the Mayo GAA player welfare programme last April.
“Concussion is a difficult injury to diagnose, and (at) most of our (club) games, we’re not going to have any medical personnel. So I think if there’s any high-velocity clash or a bang where a player falls to the ground – and it mightn’t necessarily always be their head – … if in doubt, or if you see an injury like that, take the player off … and get them to medical attention.”
Moffatt isn’t guilty of not practising what he preaches. As he pointed out at that event, there are no scans or blood tests for concussion. Diagnosing it is the equivalent of trying to grab an eel. However, hasn’t it now got to the point when there is so much doubt about head injuries that doctors should automatically err on the side of caution and remove players from further play?
Another option is the appointment of an independent match doctor. Calls for such will grow in the wake of Sunday with no little amount of evidence but it would be better practice were they to work with team medics as opposed to replacing them. Failing that, both team doctors could combine their expertise in an attempt to establish if a player is showing symptoms of concussion.
The GAA’s concussion record might be prettier than rugby’s but it is
nothing to celebrate. In the 2013 All-Ireland SFC final and 2014 All-Ireland SFC semi-final replay, two players, who later revealed they had suffered concussion, were assessed by excellent doctors yet permitted to return to the field.
Players play injured all the time – nobody is going to stop that any time soon – but it’s when neither they nor their GPs know they are hurt that there’s a real problem.
Email: john.fogarty@examiner.ie
It was long before Maurice Deegan blew for full-time that Cork knew they had two points in the bag and Mayo realised their trip home would feel far longer.
The additional five minutes at the end may have felt an eternity to the sizeable visiting support but it was in keeping with the new guidelines provided to referees regarding substitutions.
Four extra second half minutes were added in Croke Park on Saturday much to the delight of Hill 16 who began cheering every pass. Yet there was still time for David Moran to belt over a free, which may be vital should score difference become a factor later in the league as it has done in each of the last three Division 1s.
Delaying the inevitable in such one-sided games will draw comparisons with American sports and their expression for it: garbage time.
“Rubbish time” may appeal more to our sensibilities on this side of the pond but it appears the days of referees putting beaten teams out of their misery by blowing up slightly earlier than expected may be now gone.
As welcome as the new guidelines are in making the area of timekeeping fairer (curbing time-wasting) and transparent (roughly 20 seconds per substitution), just how long will it be before people describe elongated matches as unedifying?
Funnily enough, that same charge was made against the clock-hooter by the Central Competitions Control Committee who have endorsed these guidelines.
A gander at the action on RTÉ’s Allianz League Sunday and through photographs from the rest of the competitions’ games this weekend would indicate O’Neills is still the daddy when it comes to the ball of preference in inter-county football.
A glass ceiling was chipped on Saturday when Martin Donnelly’s MD ball was made available for the Dublin-Kerry game but it would appear it featured little if at all during the course of the game. For one, the ball was in play in the Division 3 game between Westmeath and Kildare in Mullingar but then so too was the O’Neills product.
Some habits die hard and the monopoly of O’Neills is such that it has become what Hoover is to a vacuum cleaner. It is a tried and tested product with immense traditional value but competition should be embraced.
Having passed all independent tests and given thumbs-up by the likes of All-Ireland champions Dublin, the MD ball has proven it’s a viable rival.
The GAA, even from a commercial perspective, is a slow train and while it would inappropriate to side with one product over another it should do its best to ensure the new kid on the block receives equal footing having satisfied all the required criteria.
