Independent AFL staff will monitor head knocks in games to back up doctors diagnosing concussions that will force players to miss a minimum of one and possibly more games this season.
The new rules for the AFL and AFLW seasons are expected to be adopted at all lower and junior leagues around the country.
The AFL has announced that any player who suffers a concussion must sit out for a minimum of 12 days under revised protocols the league says are the most stringent of any sport in Australia.
Under regular fixturing, the 12-day minimum break will mean a player must miss the next match, but with the “football frenzy” condensed fixturing that was introduced last year and was popular enough for the AFL to consider repeating this season, players could miss two or more games.
Under the previous rules, players were unable to be considered for selection unless they passed a concussion test five days before a match, but there was no rule on how long a player should be sidelined, with the AFL arguing that each case was different.
The minimum break period this year is 12 days from the incident and is not 12 days from being cleared of symptoms to return to play.
Any player who suffers a concussion will be sidelined for at least 12 days.Credit: Getty
The AFL said the 12-day mandatory break was arrived at on advice from the chief medical officer Peter Harcourt and deputy chief medical officer Michael Makdissi, and was designed to avoid repeat concussions and to reduce the potential long-term impact from cumulative incidents. It is unknown whose research the 12-day break decision was based on.
“You have to take the advice of the doctors in your employ and that is where we have landed but it will continue to evolve,” AFL general counsel Andrew Dillon said.
“The reality is we play a contact sport and there is always going to be risk, however over recent years we have continued to take action to strengthen match-day protocols and amend the laws of the game to discourage high contact.”
He accepted the change put added pressure on the doctors over the initial diagnosis as any confirmed concussion would mean missing at least the next match, but they were being supported – and observed – by independent staff in the AFL review centre (ARC).
“With the ARC we have got independent people who will look at an incident that might be concussive and refer that to the club doctors but ultimately the decision sits with the club doctors,” Dillon said.
“With the ARC and all the different (camera) angles we can assess incidents in real time and the doctors have iPads and technology on the bench and they can assess that as well and go back.”
He said the ARC had often identified possible concussive incidents in games not seen by the club staff on the bench and they alerted doctors to players to investigate and then worked with the doctor in analysing footage of the incident.
The AFL has access in real time to the testing of players by doctors.
Dillon said the AFL was in the final stages of interviewing for a “concussion lead” and expected the successful candidate to be appointed in the coming weeks.
The league will liaise with state leagues and the associations and leagues they manage to encourage them to adopt the tightened protocols at all levels of the game, and Dillon expected that would happen.
He said that in reality in most junior teams a player already missed the next match after a concussion.
The AFL is also poised to announce co-investment in research into different objective concussion tests.
“Science and medicine is continuing to evolve and we hope to be at the forefront of that,” Dillon said.
“The updated guidelines are the most stringent concussion protocols in Australian sport and we are committed to continuing to take action to protect the safety of players at all levels of the game.”
The change to the protocols comes after The Age revealed that the late Richmond footballer Shane Tuck had the most severe case the Australian Sports Brain Bank had seen of the degenerative brain disease CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). CTE was also found post-mortem in former VFL-AFL players Graham “Polly” Farmer and Danny Frawley.
CTE can only be diagnosed after death.
Tuck, who played 173 games for the Tigers and had a brief boxing career after he retired, was 38 when he died last July. Farmer died at 84, Frawley 56.