Rugby Star Admits Cheating Head Injury Protocol! What Happens Now?

Former British and Irish Lions winger Anthony Watson has dropped a bombshell, confessing to deliberately cheating a head-injury assessment during the intense 2017 series against New Zealand. Can you believe it? This is a pretty big deal, and it really makes you think about the pressures athletes face.

Rugby Star Admits Cheating Head Injury Protocol! W...

Watson admitted to memorizing the answers to a crucial recall test, part of the head-injury assessment protocol. His goal? To get back on the field after a brutal high tackle by Sonny Bill Williams in the second Test. Williams famously received a 25th-minute red card for that hit, his shoulder connecting squarely with Watson's head as the winger charged forward.

Speaking frankly in a new BBC documentary, "Ben Youngs Investigates: How Safe Is Rugby?", Watson revealed the somewhat shocking truth: he'd memorized a sequence of five words to guarantee he'd pass the recall portion of the assessment. "I knew the impact was big, and as I got in to do the protocol, I was starting to feel a bit hazy," Watson confessed. He was also quick to add, "I just want to caveat this by saying that I love the medical staff there at the Lions, and they had no idea I was doing this."

He continued, "I managed to get through the walking tests and all of that, and then when it came to the words, I knew it off by heart, so I knew I was going to get straight back on." Think about the pressure! That second Lions test was everything. You can almost understand the rationale, even if it wasn't the safest decision.

After the collision, Watson clearly looked unsteady and even struggled to stand. He was initially replaced by Jack Nowell while undergoing the assessment. But, remarkably, only six minutes later, he was back on the pitch, playing the rest of the Lions' nail-biting 24-21 victory. He also played a significant 72 minutes in the drawn series decider at Eden Park the following week. It begs the question: how many other players have done this?

The recall element of the head injury assessment has thankfully been revised since then. Instead of a fixed set of five words, players now face a random sequence generated from a pool of 20 different words for each assessment. Incorrect answers now result in penalties, making rote memorization a pretty useless strategy. In 2019, England winger Jonny May admitted to trying, unsuccessfully, to use a similar tactic after a head knock against Wales. He learned the hard way that the protocols were not that easy to get around.

Watson himself admitted to suffering a significant headache that night. "But if I could go back to then I wouldn't do anything different – it was the second Lions Test. If I report a concussion there, I might rule myself out for next week and then wait four years to potentially do it again." That right there sums up the problem. The stakes are just too high for some athletes to make the safe choice.

In contrast, Garry Ringrose made a different, and perhaps wiser, decision during last summer's Lions tour to Australia. Despite being cleared to play in the second Test against the Wallabies, the Ireland centre withdrew himself from the match after experiencing a recurrence of concussion symptoms. "Fair play to him," Watson said of Ringrose's decision. It's a reminder that prioritizing long-term health is sometimes the bravest play of all.