The recent well documented concussion of Samoan and Melbourne Storm rugby league player Elia Katoa has highlighted a potential gap in compliance with concussion guidelines.
Katoa sustained an initial concussion whilst warming up for Tonga in a Pacific Championship match. He commenced the game, however, after sustaining two further concussions, he came off the field before escalating symptoms led to him being taken to the hospital and undergoing emergency surgery on a brain bleed.
Injury in warm up is not a new phenomenon. In 2018, Queensland Bulls cricket player Matthew Renshaw, was diagnosed with a concussion and substituted out of a Shield game after suffering a head knock in a collision with a teammate during warm-up for the day’s play.
Although sport has come ahead in leaps and bounds since then as far as concussion awareness and guidelines, it is away from game time, where not as many eyes are on the athlete, where there appears to be a potential risk.
Although rugby league is one of the most proactive sports with respect to concussion policies and education, a recent Rugby League Players Association player poll revealed that approximately one in three NRL players and one in eight NRLW players didn’t report concussion symptoms they had experienced at training.
Whilst graded returns for various sports and the Australian Concussion Guidelines for Youth and Community Sport do not distinguish between concussion in or out of contest, statistics such as these
indicate there is still some way to go in educating and empowering athletes to manage their brain health.
From a legal perspective, it is vital that sporting organisations and clubs ensure that their concussion policies and procedures adequately address, and are adhered to during, training, warm up and competitive environments so as to minimise risk to both the athlete and the organisation.
