Sexton backs head injury assessment protocol

Given the choice, Jonathan Sexton wouldn't have left the pitch in final throes of the victory over Australia.

The same could probably be said for Rob Kearney, Gordon D'Arcy and Conor Murray, all of whom presented concussion-like symptoms and were taken to the sideline to be evaluated under the head injury assessment (HIA) protocols. Only Murray returned.

In the seconds after a head trauma incident on a pitch, most rugby players are subjective in outlook, to the point where their views should be materially irrelevant to any decision about their ongoing participation, a state of affairs rugby’s lawmakers and medics now recognise.

Ireland’s outhalf, speaking 48 hours after the match in his role as an ambassador for Aer Lingus and the launch of their transatlantic schedule and new routes, explained: “Under the new rules it’s best to come off and do the tests. I would have liked to have stayed on until the end. It’s always nicer when you’re on the pitch when the final whistle goes.”

More tests

He’ll complete the HIA process by undergoing more tests in Paris and a specialist will determine if he’s fit to play for Racing Metro 92 in the Top14 this weekend. It’s his third concussion in this calendar year, but he asserts that “it’s not something I’m worried about personally. It’s not like I’m getting knocked out or anything like that or having memory loss.

“I’ve had one bad concussion in my life, maybe six or seven years ago. Obviously the one against France (in the 2014 Six Nations Championship) looked bad, but sometimes you just get caught on the chin. I probably felt okay the next day, that night [even].

“I think they’re looking after players more. People are more aware of it and it leads to more interest on the subject. As players we’re concerned about the effects it might have, if you have lots of bad ones, but I’m okay. Players always want to stay on; it’s the doctors who make the decision.”

“We’re more educated now and when you do get a knock it’s ‘get them off, get them tested and if they’re okay get them back on’. What the specialists [encourage] is that even if they [concussions] are small they have to be looked after; that’s the big improvement. Before the small ones were just brushed aside. It’s great that we are looking after players now, that they are not making the same mistakes that were made previously.”

Ireland’s mental and physical courage in adversity in a fraught end-game against Australia, which guaranteed a clean sweep of victories in the three November tests, adds a layer of steel that might be used as a protective covering in potentially similar circumstances when the Six Nations Championship rolls around.

It doesn't, though, gloss over the shortcomings in performance. The players appreciate as much and know that Ireland coach Joe Schmidt had maintained throughout the series his priority was incremental improvement in performance rather than a bottom line derived purely from results.

Sexton admitted: “It was a fantastic campaign. Everyone put everything into it and we got some great results. Performance-wise, it probably wasn’t where we would like to be, but that’s a good thing that we can say that, coming off the back of three wins. We’ve plenty to work on going into the Six Nations.

Plenty to work on

“But, look, we’re judged on our performances by Joe [Schmidt] and there will be plenty of stuff we have to work on. We have a camp for two to three days just before Christmas and we’ll get the ins and outs of it then. We know in terms of our work off set-piece, how we launch [our] game and put teams under pressure when we have the ball. It is something that is obviously Joe’s strength and the players’ strength, but we didn’t do it as well as we could have over the three weeks.”

In 2014, Ireland’s ranking has improved from seventh to third, progress that the Dubliner thinks can be improved upon further ahead of next year’s World Cup. “I think we can keep that rate of improvement up. The most important thing is that we don’t keep revisiting old mistakes.

“And I don’t think we’re doing that. There’s plenty more to work on; you learn from playing the best teams in the world and that’s what we’ve done over the last few weeks . . . I think we’ve plenty to improve on and we can keep going there.

“That’s the best thing about the coaches that we have is that they demand that and by no means will they be happy with what we’ve achieved; we’ll have to go again. We can draw a line under 2014, be happy with what we achieved, but know that we could have done more performance-wise.

“The expectation comes from within the camp. You know, we do realise how much it means to people and the high that it gives the country. The expectancy is nice because it means that we’re performing. “And the pressure we put on ourselves, the pressure Paul puts on us as captain, that’s the pressure that matters. We try to tunnel our vision.” The bright lights beckon.