Among the announcements in RTÉ’s new schedule today is a documentary exploring the issue of head injuries in rugby.
Hidden Impact: Rugby’s Concussion Crisis is a one-hour documentary which will speak to players, coaches, medical experts and parents in an effort to uncover the details of an area which has become a major talking point within the game.
Last year, Dave Kearney (pictured) addressed the issue in the Hot Press interview. “Everyone’s got the message that you can’t mess around with head injuries,” he said. “I’ve only really had two concussions in my 17, 18 years of playing. On one of those occasions, I had to be hauled off the pitch when I was adamant I wanted to stay on, and was out for seven weeks. Proper care was taken of me. I was doing tests every week, I had a scan on my head and couldn’t return to training until I’d passed all those marks. It’s taken a lot more seriously now than it was back in the day.”
And while everyone in HP is looking forward to tuning in, there’s one man more interested than most; in a former life, our man Colm O’Regan pulled together some of the big names in the head injury game for a radio study of the self-same issue; you can take a cheeky listen to his college exploits below…