Danny Care makes bold claim about players taking ‘big hits and collisions’ in Premiership games
Harlequins scrum-half Danny Care and a player leaves the field for an HIA in a Premiership game.
Harlequins and former England scrum-half Danny Care has claimed he has seen players in the Premiership returning to action when after “big hits and collisions” when they did not look fit enough to do so.
Speaking at World Rugby’s Medical Commission Conference in Lisbon, Care mentioned the benefits of smart mouthguards for players – an innovation which Harlequins were among the first clubs to adopt during the 2019/2020 campaign.
Harlequins one of first three Premiership clubs to use smart mouthguard technology
Quins were one of three teams in the Premiership during that season which used the smart mouthguard technology which monitored accurately and in real-time each significant impact – direct or indirect – to every player’s head.
The smart mouthguards were subsequently adopted by all the other Premiership clubs, but Care believes there have been occasions recently where he was left wondering if some players were fit to return to action after leaving the field following big tackles or due to big impact in contact.
“I have still seen this year in the Premiership in a couple of games that I have played in, lads who have definitely had big hits and big collisions who are still coming back onto the field when they maybe shouldn’t,” said the 37-year-old, according to the Telegraph who were in attendance.
“I still think there is a lot of room for improvement for it to get better, but at least now we have actual evidence for independent match-day doctors or your own doctors to go, ‘This player has to be removed from the field for an HIA [Head Injury Assesment]’ or in the worst case to not come back on.
“The game now is as safe as it possibly can be, but I would still bang on the drum; listen to the experts. Let’s get as much data as we can and the more people who wear [the mouthguards] and the longer they wear them for, the more data we are going to have which then protects the players.”
Care, who made 101 appearances for England before announcing his international retirement after this year’s Six Nations, has been playing professional rugby for more than 20 years.
During that time he has shared a field with players who are currently battling in retirement due to repeated head knocks with some of them like former England World Cup winners Steve Thompson, Phil Vickery and Mark Regan, who are currently among more than 200 retired rugby players who are taking legal action against governing bodies World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union and the Welsh Rugby Union.
“I saw the back end [of careers] of a lot of lads who played in the non-professional era, who have been struggling post-rugby from repeated head knocks, issues as serious as dementia,” added Care
“Players getting knocked out and the smelling salts being waved under their noses to wake them up to play the rest of the game.
“Now, I am in a position as a senior player where something has been given to our club which shows we are going to look after you. We play a ridiculous sport given what the lads have to put their bodies through, especially the ones making 20 tackles a game.
‘We have to buy into this’
“If there is anything we can do which helps the coaches and medics to look after us more we have to buy into this, because I’ve seen the catastrophic events that can happen to someone who has had repeated head knocks constantly throughout their career, and [the impact] it can have to their lives moving forward.
“Look at someone like Steve Thompson, who I played with for a few years. When senior players are that adamant about it, the academy and younger players bought in. We had a really strong uptake because the players realised the seriousness and severity of what not having this data could lead to.”
