Christy O'Connor: Hurling helmets have changed the game for player welfare
Patrick Horgan was sent off in the 2013 Munster final against Limerick by referee James McGrath for accidental contact with the helmet. The decision was overturned on appeal. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
This Cork hurling team has long had a reputation as entertainers but the TV viewers at home are nearly more excited now by what happens after the final whistle than what happened during the game.
Nobody is switching off because Ben O’Connor’s post-match interviews have almost become box-office events. And everybody is watching.
After just three league matches, O’Connor has consistently been pulling the trigger and unloading both barrels in the direction of GAA officialdom, particularly around rules and refereeing.
O’Connor has made some valid points but he isn’t always right, especially with his views around the issue of players being penalised for hurley contact with an opponent’s helmet or faceguard. His argument after the Tipperary match was that helmets and faceguards are designed to offer protection.
“Mycro are saving lives and eyes all over the country with helmets,” said O’Connor. “We're supposed to be playing the fastest field game in the world. If I'm running at you full belt, and you come at me with a slight turn or little flick of the head... fellas roaring for yellow cards, red cards.
The game is vastly different from the past in relation to players getting hit on the head with a hurley, certainly around aerial play. Most players now are trying to catch or break the ball to the ground, where there is far less swinging or players trying to double on the ball, all of which has reduced the propensity for players to be struck around the head area with a loose hurley.
Hurling has become such a possession-based game that there are fewer contests for the ball. Yet there are far more body hits because players are conditioned to take the ball into contact to try and break the tackle.
And that has opened up a whole new dangerous contact zone around head injuries.
Players are always particularly vulnerable when they’re emerging with the ball from a tackle or a gang-tackling scenario, especially if they have to crouch down slightly to push off from a tackle or to extricate themselves from a ruck-type situation.
As opposition players engage the ball-carrier and make physical contact, a shoulder-to-shoulder tackle is often a few inches away from shoulder-to-head.
Every player has a duty of care and responsibility to their opponent around head high tackling but self-regulation is harder again when the game has become so fast and players have never been physically stronger.
A mistimed tackle or body contact around the head area often runs the risk of inflicting serious injury. And dangerous head-high tackles should always be a red card.
O’Connor’s point on players looking for red cards when an opponent sometimes makes minimal contact with another player’s helmet or head area fits into a different category.
That does happen – and it has become more common in recent years – but it’s still not a good enough reason to reduce the tolerance level around helmet contact. Because the risks are too great.
On O’Connor’s point about helmets being there to protect players, how many head injuries occur now in the inter-county game? Two years ago a study by Nolan, Alagic, Sokol-Randell, Rotundo, Deasy and Crowley in conjunction with the Irish College General Practitioners Cork Specialist Training Scheme, the School of Medicine and Health, and Emergency Department University College Cork revealed some interesting findings.
Titled a ‘Video Analysis of Helmet Area Injuries and Helmet Type Worn in Hurling and Camogie Over 2 Seasons’, the study was the first of this nature conducted in hurling, camogie or similar sports such as ice hockey or lacrosse.
Of those 129 injuries, 86% of those involved non-standard helmets. A non-standard helmet is defined as one that never met the IS355 standard (drawn up by the National Standards Authority of Ireland) from when it was manufactured, or a helmet that has been subsequently modified so that it no longer meets the specifications.
O’Connor is right in that Mycro are the safest helmets in the market. Mycro provide the greatest protection, but players still continually make modifications to helmets to suit their needs or tastes.
The most common modifications involve changing the face guard, or the chin straps, all of which leaves players and parents more exposed to a large financial burden as they are not able to claim for injuries while wearing a non-standard helmet.
That’s a whole other debate but O’Connor still can’t square his argument that helmet safety should allow for more officiating leeway around head contact.
“He has a point in a lot of things, but in the head contact, not so much," said Patrick Horgan on after the Tipp game. "It's something that can't come into the game.
"The players now are stronger, fitter, more powerful than ever before. They're moving at a really fast speed so any kind of a collision can be dangerous. Out of all of his comments, that's the only one he might take back."
O’Connor though, certainly won’t be taking back anything anytime soon. The Cork manager will always be ready to pull the trigger during his post-match comments.
And if he’s box office now when Cork are wining, what’s O’Connor going to be like when Cork lose a game, or if a referee makes a wrong call that costs Cork a win?
That will be real blockbuster stuff.
App?
