Therefore he knows whether it was concussion or not.
Therefore he can say:
It wasn’t concussion
It was concussion and I’ve cleared the player through examinations
It was concussion and the player is not fit to play
The doctor (by not saying anything) is effectively saying it’s not concussion. If there is “suspected concussion” the doctor has to investigate. By not investigating he is either:
a_ confirming there was no concussion or
b_ lying
If he was lying about there being no concussion why wouldn’t he just say there was concussion and falsely clear O’Gara to play. In either circumstance it’s malpactice from a doctor which seems to me to be highly improbable.
OK forget my second point, you’ve refuted it but it’s unnecessary anyway.
But if the IRB define concussion as resulting from a blow to the head, which it does, surely the distinction between choking and knocked unconscious from the tackle is crucial? I don’t think the doctor can prove the cause of the loss of consciousness, but if it was from a blow to the head he might be out for the Italy game, and if it is from being choked there is no question of him being out; hence a possible motive for the choking story.
I accept that the choking would not necessarily give rise to a medical assessment, but that’s assuming the incident occurred away from medical attention. As it was he was treated by a doctor on the field who surely knew straight away whether it was a choking or a blow to the head that caused the distress. I’m just accepting medical opinion as having more basis in fact than David Sole’s theories.
Yeah I think those are generous odds on England but going back to an old theory I have on rugby betting the -2 margin looks more tempting because the bookies are effectively offering only 5/1 or so on England winning by either 1 point or 2 points which would be terrible odds. So if you fancy England to win take on the opposite of that and back them to beat the margin.
Someone in England on a blog I read earlier said he got much bigger odds than that on Ireland to win the tournament.
I suppose Paddypower would be expected to have the least generous odds on Ireland, but Betdaq and Betfair don’t look much better: Betdaq is 2.9375, which I think is a bit better than 15/8, and Betfair is 3.05, which I think is a bit better than 2 to 1
Any of you rugby lads have any major grievances about Saturday or any pointers for the upcoming WC?
I see Ward and Thornley have picked their respective teams of the Championship today and both have 8 Irish players with France, the champions, only getting 4 from GT and 3 from Wardie!
What do you lads reckon? Are we still short of real top class? Lack strength in depth?
Definitely lack depth. Look at England against France, Wilkinson got injured and Flood looked great, then went off and his replacement Geraghty made one of the breaks of the Championship. Who do we have to replace O’Gara (or O’Driscoll, or O’Connell, or Hayes)? And our backs are generally just making up for the relative weakness of our pack, but there’s nothing we can do there, it’s not like there’s any other front 5 forwards being left out really.
No major grievance with the way Saturday ended up. I think they should standardise and make more open the question to the TMO, apparently the TMO on Saturday (ironically Irishman Simon McDowell) had reservations (rightly) over the last French “try” but because of the way the question was put to him, couldn’t deal with those reservations. But not too worried about not winning the Six Nations, it would only have been due to winning a try more or less against Scotland or Italy, which doesn’t mean that much. Under the old rules we’d have shared the title, which was a fairer way of doing it, obviously these days they want a sole winner so they can have pictures of the victors with the trophy. As I’ve said to you Bandage, we’ve two games away to France in the next 12 months, win them both and we’ve a great chance of a Grand Slam and World Cup Final.
Will think about team of Championship, but wouldn’t argue prima facie with more Irish than French; when we played well (second half against Italy & even France, game against England) we were in a different league to anyone else in the Northern Hemisphere.
This could be a great World Cup, if we can turn over the French and embark on a run and if Italy could beat Scotland in France to make the quarters. Wales could even surprise Australia in Cardiff on current form.
Especially because (although I’ve only seen the end of the French game so far) the dodgiest call I’ve seen so far was the one allowing our try at the end of the first half, which seemed to be set up by a blatant forward pass.
Just to show that the 8 Irishmen isn’t bias on our part, Planetrugby has 8 on their team too (+ 3 Italians, 2 French, 1 Scot, 1 English):
15 Girvan Dempsey
14 Sean Lamont (Ward: Strettle; Thornley: Dominici)
13 Brian O’Driscoll
12 Gordon D’Arcy
11 Denis Hickie (Ward: Robinson)
10 Ronan O’Gara
9 Harry Ellis (Ward & Thornley: Mignoni)
8 Sergio Parisse
7 David Wallace
6 Simon Easterby (Thornley: Leamy (at 8, Parisse at 6))
5 Paul O’Connell
4 Marco Bortolami
3 Martin Castrogiovanni (Ward: Hayes; Thornley: Nieto)
2 Raphal Ibaez
1 Olivier Milloud
Couldn’t argue with any of the 10 unanimous calls, great to see Girv in there.
As for the others, would go for Hickie & Strettle on the wings, Troncon as scrumhalf, Parisse at 8 (and therefore Easterby at 6), and Castrogiovanni at prop (though front row is always less visible & therefore hard to judge); giving 8 Irish, 4 Italian, 2(!) French and 1 English.
That was the sporting highlight of the year for me. I felt pruod to be a Leinsterman. I’d say when the next round of tv deals come up Schools Rugby will go pay per view.
Fair enough selections and it’s hard to quibble with any of them (though Robinson ahead of Hickie is an odd call). France’s rotation system worked against selecting many of their players - Mignoni looked good at 9 but didn’t really play enough.
Unlucky for Leamy to miss out (I noticed Corry said he was the best player he came up against) but Parisse is a real class act for Italy.
are you telling me it has sunk in yet for you? too early for me to describe my emotions yet. if you ask me again in a few weeks i’ll have a better idea.
6 Irish, 4 Italian, 4 French, 1 English.
Waiting for L’Equipe to pick a team.
Indeed it was noted on the Beeb messageboard that Dempsey & Hickie were unlucky, and that Horgan should probably be ahead of Strettle having ultimately outplayed him when the two were in direct opposition.
Also, someone mischeviously asked on the Beeb messageboard if there would be any non-Irish on a Lions team picked today? Stringer (v Ellis), O’Callaghan (v Wyn-Jones), and perhaps Horan & Best would I think be the only ones struggling for their place.