Paul Kent: Injuries to Jake Friend, Anthony Mundine put concussions right back in the spotlight

The brain does not care for reputation or status over the long journey of a rugby league career, and you need only look at some of our legends for proof, writes Paul Kent.

Jake Friend faces an uncertain future.

There is no better place to understand the confusion of rugby league and concussion than at one of those mid-week do’s rugby league used to do so well, when old men wearing old scars would find the bar after the formalities and tell stories with big endings.

The trick at these events was to settle yourself into the right group. Almost all the stories had at least an inkling of truth.

Space around Noel Kelly always filled quickly.

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Anthony Mundine was punched into retirement by Michael Zerafa.

In many ways Ned was an anomaly. He had a gentle manner but could be quick to temper. He was caring and gracious but was one of the true hard men of the game, able to inflict pain without sympathy, and happy to do so.

His pedigree was stamped.

He held up the front row for Western Suburbs and Australia and fought in the dusty tents with Jimmy Sharman’s boxing troupe.

He got sent off 16 times, including twice in the same Test against France when he hoped the referee would not recognise he had snuck back on.

If ever anybody had the pedigree to suffer late in life the smart money would have been on Ned.

But no, when Ned died last year at 84, he was as sharp as ever, still a lively chat, right up until the day he had his stroke which claimed him a month later.

Nobody properly understands what happens during a concussion and what or even if the long term damage will be.

There was a time when players wobbled to their feet, sucked some water out of the sponge and found their way back to the defensive line.

Jake Friend faces an uncertain future.

Royce Simmons got knocked out three times in one State of Origin and was man of the match. He wasn’t the first to finish as the game’s best player and be unable to remember it, the game filled with such stories.

But the brain does not care for reputation or status over the long journey.

Johnny Raper lives in the same nursing home as Billy Smith, his great teammate, and does not recognise him when they pass in the hall.

Greater care is taken now to protect players, the warriors in the middle, which makes it so hard to comment on Jake Friend’s future right now. It’s a confusion spread across the world.

Friend got knocked out again on Sunday, his third concussion in two seasons.

The Roosters are wary about making comment for fear of how it will be construed.

Meanwhile, some are rushing him to retirement, while others are just concerned.

The night before Friend went down Anthony Mundine got clipped on top of the head and failed to see out the first round against Michael Zerafa, the knockout ending Mundine’s storied career at 45.

A former NRL player himself, the frightening part is neither suffered what appeared a significant blow.

Legend Noel Kelly died last year aged 84 still as sharp as ever.

And both are showing less and less resistance to force than previous blows.

And both have a history of concussions.

Yet what this means nobody knows.

The best anybody can offer is anecdotal evidence.

I don’t know what the future is for Friend. Like most, I worry for him.

Young men make different decisions to old men. Old men, living with their mistakes, understand consequence.

As the game wonders what to do with Friend, there is enough to understand the medical advice is little more than best practice so, as gloomy as it sometimes appears, to fear the worst is not foolish.

Who is to know that today’s over-reaction, according to some, might be tomorrow’s under reaction?

Noel Kelly in his Australian gear.

Kelly was a fearsome sight.

Simmons was picked up and dusted off. It would not happen now.

As far as the game has come in recent years, has the caution come far enough?

I was talking to an old fight trainer recently who watches the NRL with a particularly good eye and who has big concerns for some of those suffering repeated concussions.

He identified a “blankness” in their eyes that he has seen too many times in too many fighters.

The brain never fully recovers, he said. Good cornermen also know the moment their fighter suffers a knockout the end has begun, as the second always comes easier.

His advice came from kindness and experience: “Retire.”

Brains don’t heal like hamstrings.

The game is doing all it can to care for its warriors, even when one slips into the fog.

Royce Simmons once got knocked out three times in one Origin game.

Elsewhere in the room one night, while Ned Kelly was being lively and funny by the bar, another former international got up to take himself to the bathroom.

He played more club games but less Tests than Ned.

Somewhere in the bright lights of the bathroom something happened and he got confused.

“Where’s the door?” he asked.

There, in the small bathroom, he was unable to find the door to get out, unable to remember the way out.

Someone gently took his arm.

There was a time when he was as strong and lively as all of them, and as he sits in his home today, still nobody can explain why his memory left him.

Originally published as Paul Kent: Injuries to Jake Friend, Anthony Mundine put concussions right back in the spotlight