Premiership to review bizarre Quins-Newcastle incident after HIA controversy

Technology aimed at protecting Premiership players has been called into question again after a bizarre incident during Harlequins’ 28-14 win over Newcastle.

The Falcons’ new center, Sammy Arnold, had given them excellent focus as a running back and tackle, but with 13 minutes on the clock, he was ordered off the field for a head injury evaluation ( HIA) after an alert came from his instrumented mouthguard.

The vast majority of Premiership players have committed to using the technology as part of a multi-million pound investment backed by the Rugby Football Union and World Rugby.

Arnold protested that there was no head impact and that officials should check the footage, but the agreed procedure in the Premiership is that the independent match doctor brooks no argument if an alert is raised, This is beyond the referee’s control, and so Arnold opted for a 12-minute IST which was probably nonsense.

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As referee Luke Pearce explained: “It’s a dental guard beep, there’s a certain number and as soon as it goes over that number it’s an HIA. »

Newcastle boss Steve Newcastle boss Steve Diamond later said he believed Arnold had dropped the mouthguard and “didn’t have time to put it back on”.

A review of video of the game shows Arnold kicking the ball down the field just before it was called out – could that have been the source of the ‘beep’?

Pearce, meanwhile, was none too happy to be left as the person trying to communicate what was happening to the bewildered players, let alone the bemused spectators.

“Maybe it’s a little teething problem,” Diamond said, no pun intended. “It didn’t change the outcome, it’s what everyone agrees we need to do, I think we’ll have a few hiccups with it, but it’s all for the safety of the game.”

The incident came a week after widespread concern over Sale’s Tom Curry, after the England flanker suffered a ‘criterion 1’ concussion which was not detected by the independent doctor in real time, apparently in due to a technological failure, and which should have seen Curry immediately removed from the game.

There will be a review of the incident, as a Premiership spokesperson confirmed that all HIA events are independently reviewed after each match.

Among the outstanding questions are the need to remind players to wear the mouthguard during all phases of play and the ability of the independent physician to understand and manage a situation in which the mouthguard is not in place.

World Rugby has dictated since last fall that elite players must wear “smart” mouthguards if they want to benefit from the in-game HIA1 test, which allows them to return to the field if doctors give them the all clear Green. I understands that only “a handful” of Premiership players have chosen not to do so.

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend expressed surprise when two of his players were canceled at this year’s Six Nations, but that was due to the extent to which “the alert peaks” had correctly identified the “head acceleration event” it was supposed to record.