Mea culpa from the Wales Rugby Union chief medical manager
Prav Mathema has fronted up, on behalf of the WRU, and admitted Wales’ head injury monitoring procedures need to improve.
Mathema, who has worked on the last two British & Irish Lions tours, has made the admission following the furore of Wales winger George North remaining on the pitch after he was temporarily knocked out. The incident occurred in the second half of Wales’ loss to England and less than thirty minutes after North had come through a first-half concussion test for an accidental kick to the head.
‘Having seen it since, North should definitely have been removed,’ he conceded. ‘At that moment it was clear to see that he had a momentary loss of consciousness and, because of that, irrespective of him having no signs or symptoms, we’ve been dealing with George North as a concussion. We’ve seen where our protocols need to improve.’
Mathema added, ‘All I saw was George North getting up off his knees when I arrived at the scene. He was completely lucid and conversing spontaneously with me. At that time I deemed him fit to play.’
You can watch the full Mathema interview with WRU TV here.
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