Kilkenny doctor questions wisdom of limiting sideline medics

Another prominent GAA doctor has slammed the new sideline regulations, describing them as “bad medicine”.

Tralee native Tadhg Crowley has been Kilkenny hurling team doctor for the past 12 years and echoed the concerns about the limit of one sideline medic per team aired by Kildare football’s Dr Danny Mulvihill yesterday.

“I’d love to know where they’re coming because I think it’s bad medicine. With any inter-county team, there are guys who will train hard all year and put in the work for generally 10 big matches, four or five in the championship.

“If a player gets injured during a match, you have your physiotherapist who is qualified in one area and a doctor who obviously has a different skill-set.

“What the GAA is saying is ‘anyone will basically do out there [on the field] once you have a medic out there to treat it’.

“My view on that would be, ‘you won’t’. If a guy has swallowed his tongue and there’s a physio out there, the physio wouldn’t be qualified in what has to be done.

“Trying to get a guy down from a stand could end in a catastrophe. That’s a bad idea.”

Croke Park have insisted doctors won’t be interfered with in doing their job if seated in the stand but Crowley questioned the reasoning behind the decision to reduce the number of a team’s sideline medical personnel.

“I’m wondering is there an implication that players are being over-treated or over-managed, which I think is a player welfare issue. I think these players deserve the very best on the sideline.”

In last April’s Division 1A league game between Kilkenny and Galway in Nowlan Park, Crowley was called on to aid Galway goalkeeper Jamie Ryan after he collided with Richie Hogan.

As he explained: “The Galway physio and doctor were down treating a very serious injury on the other side of the pitch and the Galway goalkeeper was knocked out.

“Both myself and the physio went in and certainly in that exchange I needed another medical person with me because we had to turn the guy. We had to check if he swallowed his tongue.”

He added: “I worry when decisions are made about this without any consultation.”

It is understood the new sideline measure was one of — if not the — primary reason Limerick hurling team doctor David Boylan stepped down after over 20 years’ service.

Another current county doctor who wished not to be named said he would be adhering to the regulation but was strenuously against it.

One other GAA doctor, who also preferred to remain anonymous, said it had made him question his future as an inter-county GAA team doctor.

“When you’re doing it on a voluntary basis, you have to wonder is it worth it anymore when you’re told to do this.”