Rugby is trying to fix a problem that may not exist, writes SIMON BORCHARDT.

“What for?” a visibly frustrated Anton Lienert-Brown gestured to the Chiefs dugout, having just been told to leave the field for a concussion test despite not taking a head knock.

The All Blacks centre’s departure came at a crucial time in the Super Rugby Pacific opener for the hosts, who trailed the Crusaders by two points and were on the attack in their opponents’ 22. Fortunately for the Chiefs, the loss of a key player didn’t cost them the game, as they came away with three points from that attack and went on to win 34-30. But it so easily could have.

The same thing had happened to Crusaders lock Quinten Strange and Chiefs centre Quinn Tupaea earlier in the match. Both players were forced to leave the field despite not having taken head knocks, before passing concussion tests and returning to play.

The reason for their departures? World Rugby’s ‘smart’ mouthguards, which measure a direct or indirect “head acceleration event” that occurs when a player’s head is knocked sideways in a tackle, carry or ruck. If the impact for a male rugby player is more than 70G (the force at which his head moves in a straight line) and/or 4,000 radians per second squared (the force his head moves in other directions), the app sends an alert via bluetooth to a doctor, who pulls the player from the field for a concussion test. The threshold for female rugby players is 55G.

These mouthguards, which will reportedly cost a club around £8,500 (R207,000) a year, have been hailed as a “game changer” by World Rugby. However, based on the Super Rugby Pacific opener, they will only change the game for the worse.

According to The Times, the mouthguards were expected to result in one player removal per match, with any more than that disrupting the game and leading to “unhelpful scepticism” from players and coaches.

That proved to be prophetic.

After the Super Rugby Pacific opener, Crusaders captain Scott Barrett called the mouthguard technology “a step too far”. He added: “If you’re influencing when key players are going off, and they don’t know what for, it can be frustrating for a player.”

A few hours later, Scotland coach Gregor Townsend had similar sentiments after prop Zander Fagerson was withdrawn during their Six Nations match against England at Murrayfield.

“I saw the tackle again – just a normal tackle,” he said. “I think we have to really watch what we’re doing here. Trust in technology that’s not been proven.”

The discussion now will be around the need to refine the technology, while educating players, coaches and fans on its importance. What should be discussed, though, is why we need these mouthguards, and other player safety measures (like the lowering of the tackle height), at all.

Lindsay Starling, World Rugby’s science and medical manager, told The Times, “there is a chance that repeated head impacts over a player’s life may contribute to long-term brain health, so we should be doing what we can to look after players’ brain health from all head-impact events, not just concussions.”

Surely, though, game-changing innovations or law trials should be based on more than just “a chance” of something bad happening?

How many professional rugby players have there been in total since 1996? How many of them have had brain-related issues since retiring from the game? How many of those issues can be directly traced to rugby or are other factors involved? What percentage of current professional rugby players accept the risk of concussion that comes with playing the game?

Until these and other key questions are answered, it will be hard to shake the feeling that improving player safety is just a box-ticking, money-making exercise that will end only when players and coaches realise the power they wield and say “enough is enough”.

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Src: sarugbymag.co.za