Alan Quinlan: It didn’t matter that a Test match was on the line, concussion protocols had to be followed
After the game on Saturday, I got a Tweet from Peter Robinson, father of the schoolboy Benjamin Robinson who died on the side of a rugby pitch in January 2011. Since his son’s death, Peter has been campaigning for greater awareness of concussion and so obviously what happened in the Ireland game had a deeper resonance for him than most.
Four Ireland players went through head injury assessment protocols during the game – Johnny Sexton, Gordon D’Arcy, Rob Kearney and Conor Murray. It was the Murray incident that Peter got in touch with me about. He had suffered a knee in the side of the head from Quade Cooper and although he was clearly groggy afterwards he played on for a few minutes.
As I said at the time on commentary, it was really good to see what happened next. Éanna Falvey, who has been the Ireland team doctor for a few years now, basically took the decision himself to bring Murray off the pitch. If you were in the ground and you had the ref-link radio, you could hear the referee Glen Jackson stopping play to say, “Green nine, head injury”……………. see the full story at :- http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/dr-%C3%A9anna-falvey-set-great-example-with-call-on-conor-murray-in-australia-match-1.2014741
