Concussion is an issue for all sports

The IRFU’s updated concussion guide for the amateur game, issued last week, is an indication of how sports’ governing bodies are striving to keep up to speed with the medical profession’s developing knowledge of the condition.

If national governing bodies (NGBs) are to provide the correct information to their sport’s participants and assure their players, players’ parents, and coaches that the game they play is safe, then having the ability to correctly manage medical issues such as concussion is vital to the development of their sport.

That is the view of a leading sports lawyer in Ireland and co-founder of the Sports Law Bar Association, Tim O’Connor BL, who made a presentation on “Concussion and Irish Sport” to the professional body’s inaugural Sports Law Conference in Dublin a fortnight ago.