Rugby

Luke Cowan-Dickie - wake up wimp, the Lions need you

Let me say this just once. It is not so bad being knocked out stone cold on a rugby pitch

Luke Cowan-Dickie lies unconcious at Twickenham after being knocked out during a game against Harlequins. Photograph: Warren Little/Getty

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Johnny Watterson
Fri Jul 9 2021 - 06:50

Luke Cowan-Dickie. Wake up wimp. The British and Irish Lions need you.

All this lying around on the paddock head on the grass and fast asleep like mummy just tucked you in. Sweet dreams big fella.

Have you lost your mind? Boom. Boom. This could be heading for disaster. Boom. Boom. Let’s get the brainy jokes in early because this has become a stand-up routine. This is jocktastic hilarious. Not.

Zzzzzzzzz… Sorry the concentration isn’t quite the way it used to be. Dearie me I’ve forgotten what I’m talking about. It’s all those head knocks I’ve had. The dings. Lordy me, the dings and the head spins. You know I once played the great game of rugby union for England and won the 2003 World Cup.

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I was a hooker. But I can’t remember any of that. When I watch the final over it is as if I am watching England play now. Except I was there. But I can’t remember at all being there. Honestly, I don’t know scores from any of the games.

Oh and I can’t put my socks on either. Have I already mentioned the depression? But that’s nothing. That’s nothing for an international rugby career that I wish I could recall.

‘Rugbyest’ name in rugby

I believe I was quite good in the frontrow. Just like that Exeter Chiefs guy with the ‘rugbyest’ name in rugby. What is his name? What is his name? What is his name? Let me go Google it. There we go. It’s Cowan- Dickie. That’s the most ‘rugbyest’ name in rugby. Pardon me, I might have already said that.

But let me put this on the record once and for all. Cowan-Dickie appeared off the bench against the Sigma Lions on Saturday a week after being knocked out in Exeter’s Premiership final defeat to Harlequins.

What I want to say is this. What I want to say is . . . Exactly what is it that I want to say to people who might be concerned Gatty?

What you need to say is this.

“There are strict protocols that our medical team follow that World Rugby have brought in for players to go through.”

Okay, thanks Gatty. Are those my words Gatty? No they are my words. They are the ones I use when troubled people ask me why I picked Cowan-Dickie to play after his recently brief departure from consciousness.

Okay then, you better take it from here Gatty. I think that would be for the best.

“We had a world-renowned specialist in concussion look at Luke and he cleared him as well. Every player is affected differently. Sometimes a player can be knocked out and recover and be perfect in a very short time. He’s gone through all the protocols. All I can say is that I 100 per cent follow the advice of the medical team.”

It can all get so easily confusing. I was about to say how sweet it is Luke has a hyphen in his name. Splendidly English and it gives you a pause just in case you start to forget the end.

Where was I? Let me say this and I’ll only say it once. It is not so bad being knocked out stone cold on a rugby pitch. It is not so bad being knocked out stone cold on a rugby pitch.

Although he may not remember charging head long into Harlequins Dino Lamb and having his bell rung, I can tell you this for nothing, he was like a spring lamb when he woke up.

Frontrow England bro

I remember when it happened to me the first thing I thought of as I regained my senses was the doctor holding my head in place in case I had a spinal injury. That and Ellis Park the following week and coming off the bench for my frontrow England bro Jamie George.

That’s just the way I roll. And isn’t it amazing how the brain can recover and seven days later you can throw it into another blender.

Uncanny how all the pieces, the neurons and ganglia the cortex and brain stem, the lamina terminalis, the medulla and pons knit together like the shape shifting T-1000 that came back in time to kill John Connor so that he wouldn’t become leader of the human resistance in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

Some days when I switch off for a few minutes and forget exactly where I am or what it is I am supposed to be doing, or when I become lost in the housing estate in which I have lived for 20 years, I imagine all those little fragments of loose tissue in my head migrating towards each other like the liquid metal Terminator pools coalescing to become my brain the way it once was. Fascinating, the human body and how it can recover.

So don’t worry about a little bit of shut eye seven days before the Lions match courtesy of a knee to the head in a mistimed tackle. At least that’s what appeared to happen because most of it becomes a bit of a guessing game when you spark out on impact. So, don’t distress over a little road tester off the bench.

Now. Let me say this just once. It is not so bad being knocked out stone cold on a rugby pitch.

Wake up wimp. The British and Irish Lions need you.

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