Sports must adapt to new reality

As we watch football finals this weekend, and enjoy elite women’s seasons in full swing, there is a question all who love their games need answered: How can contact sports change to reduce risks of debilitating, indeed mortal, brain injuries to players, young and old, elite and average? As Jessica Halloran and Wendy Carlisle report in The Weekend Australian, science now shows that repeated head impacts, not just cases of concussion, can damage players’ brains, and it does not take decades of hits to the head to do great harm.

This creates a conundrum for everybody involved. Contact sports, especially football, are creators of character, engines of experience, they help beginners learn about life, give older ones purpose and focus – and entertain all who watch them play. Australian life without football would be un-Australian. And yet, what is the cost? Game day injuries are inevitable, cuts heal, bruises fade, pride repairs – but permanent brain damage does not get better. Which is why the codes must not just accept but embrace the reality brain damage is not just the luck of the draw and, except in the most undeniable of severe cases, not their problem. This can start with reducing contact training and continue with more data on, and analysis of, player injuries, and with changes to the way the sport is played, at least by youngsters. A Senate committee report last year on concussion in contact sports recommended rule “modifications” to reduce concussion and repeated head trauma, especially in young players.

And the codes should do it now, lest it be done for them. The senators also wondered out loud “whether any existing government bodies would be best placed to monitor, oversee and/or enforce concussion-related rules and return-to-play protocols”.

There’s another reason why football administrators need to adjust; if they don’t, increasing awareness of concussion means there will be fewer future players – the mums and dads of Australia will see to that.