Paul Kent: The radical solution to clear dark concussion shadow looming over rugby league

On a day where concussion cast a shadow over rugby league, PAUL KENT writes it’s time the NRL looked more towards prevention than cure to save the game from grassroots to NRL.

Dale Finucane. Picture: Jeremy Ng/Getty Images

Dale Finucane went out on his shield on Tuesday, one of the great warriors.

He retired after his doctor told him he must retire immediately, and the great fear for this game and many others is that it came within hours of one of the other great warriors of this game, Wally Lewis, addressing the National Press Club about the dangers of concussion.

Lewis was diagnosed with brain damage years ago.

Finucane only recently.

They are completely unrelated but are now wedded by circumstance.

The fear is the way forward.

For Lewis, it is looking for lost car keys in the morning with a fear that it might speak to something bigger. For Finucane, who feels completely normal right now, it is the shadow that might, or might not, be standing over him.

And for the NRL, and many other sports, it is how do they survive as evidence mounts of the long-term damage of concussions?

There are various solutions, few of which are being properly considered.

One dramatic solution is to split the game and create an elite version, for the TV and big dollars, where players are aware of the potential damage but sign up anyway, like boxers and mixed martial artists.

They go in knowing the risks, and hope that one day the reward outweighs those possibilities.

A safer version is then created for kids and bush footballers, where there is no long-term reward.

Dale Finucane. Picture: Jeremy Ng/Getty Images

It would require a major overhaul. And given the ARL Commission is responsible for the whole administration of the game, comes under its watch.

If the ARL Commission does not drive its own future then at some point there will come a critical point when governments will become involved, much like the combat sports.

It is nearing, so why not now?

That a player who played as bravely and wholly as Finucane is squeezed out of the game because of those very qualities is an indictment on what the game has become in these so-called enlightened times.

It is time the NRL looked more towards prevention than cure.

At the moment the NRL has independent doctors on the sideline to spot concussed players and get them off the field for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA).

A player who fails this test is not allowed to return.

He is then subject to an immediate 11-day stand down policy to rest his damaged brain, the timing of which more often than not sees them conveniently back in time for the round after next.

In each, the change in policy comes after a concussion has been suffered.

How much is being done to prevent concussions from actually happening is less constructive.

The NRL has made artificial changes to kick re-starts and the like to minimise heavy contact but it is mostly secondary action.

The easy answer is to upgrade the penalties for high tackles and sidelining players for extended periods to drive the change from within.

Tacking styles have changed dramatically in the past 20 years or so.

Players are more upright to stop the ball-runner at the collision point and win the tackle, keeping their heads in the collision zone.

Unfortunately, not a lot of corporate memory remains at headquarters, or even around the game, and today’s style is all most know.

Those old enough to have actually watched Ray Price in the eight jersey at Parramatta, or remember Mark Graham at the North Sydney Bears, are old enough to remember when tacklers hit under the ball and a swinging arm that collected a chin was always an immediate send-off.

Now, they’re on report.

The style changed to become more effective at stopping the ball-runner before he poked through the line or prevent the offload and the new style saw tacklers begin coming in with arms swinging over the ball which narrowed the target point to within a few inches.

Not a lot of room for error.

Wally Lewis at the National Press Club. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

As more and more tackles went bad the game reacted not by continually suspending players but by tolerating the change and reducing penalties to keep the stars on the field.

More and more players are getting knocked out in today’s game, even though the NRL will argue there is no evidence of that, it is just that the game is more diligent towards identifying it.

Yes, and if your aunty had wheels she would be a bike.

For change to be made it needs to be driven by the coaches, which must come from up top.

Coaches alone can drive change at the playing level, but won’t do it voluntarily.

The NRL can reduce many of these concussions out of the game by forcing coaches to drive the change in tackling styles.

Coaches won’t do it voluntarily. By nature they coach for the short term, not much further than the duration of their contracts, and they find no job security in coaching the long term health of the game if it means losing the ruck.

Yet much like Jim Comans did when he was brought in to eradicate the thug violence in the game and most declared it impossible, it can be done through sanctions.

Comans sidelined the thugs for so long coaches had no choice but to educate their players to play differently just so they could be sure they would keep them on the field.

It would work the same with tackling, too.

Turn one and two-week suspensions for high tackles into seven and eight-week suspensions and coaches will have no choice but to train their players to bring their levels down, initially to save themselves, but saving the brain in the meantime.