Cranial trauma probe union stumps NRL Live Sports News

The Rugby League Players’ Association gave evidence on Monday as part of a parliamentary inquiry into concussions and repetitive head injuries in contact sports.

Player operations manager Jamie Buhrer told the inquest he was “not free” to say whether chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was real.

Pushed further, he admitted that the issue was beyond his area of ​​expertise.

“We will engage our medical advisers to form positions on medical conditions,” Mr Buhrer told the inquest.

Mr Buhrer also dismissed suggestions that it was a conflict of interest that the RLPA’s chief medical adviser, and the players’ union itself, were funded by the NRL.

Meanwhile, Professional Footballers Australia, the football players’ union, told the inquest on Monday it was pushing for the sport’s rules to be changed to allow more time for proper concussion assessments.

Currently, if a player suffers a suspected concussion on the pitch, the club doctor has three minutes to carry out an assessment before the match resumes.

“The laws of the game do not facilitate a long enough period for that person to be sent off and assessed,” said PFA co-chief executive Beau Busch.

Earlier, Australia’s top sports medicine body defended its position that there was no clear causal link between repetitive head trauma and CTE.

Sports Medicine Australia chief executive Jamie Crain said the organization’s statement was under review.

“That doesn’t mean we necessarily sway one way or the other,” he said.

The SMA’s position, according to Dr. Reidar Lystad, who is on its scientific advisory board, is based on the 2017 international consensus statement on concussion in sport.

Dr. Lystad said he expressed reservations about some aspects of the report. He said the evidence “for a causal relationship” between repeated head trauma and neurodegenerative diseases such as CTE was “imperfect but undeniable”.