Jamie Roberts puts his head on the line

Jamie Roberts is going to play an international rugby match with a brain injury.

There, that’s pretty stark, isn’t it? I wonder if the Welsh team doctors have been that blunt with him.

Because he freely admits in today’s Independent that he was “knocked out cold” at the weekend and has very hazy memories of even leaving the pitch. But he’s been told he’s “fit and ready to go”.

I’m not a health professional, but it doesn’t require a lifetime’s training in the nuances of neurology and neurosurgery to be able to read.

And when you look at even the more accessible research into brain injury, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that a bang on the head is more than something which you shake off in a week.

When you suffer such an injury the basic building blocks of consciousness and coherent thought, the brain cells and the delicate synaptic structures which connect them, are subjected to more than just the physical impact. Chemical reactions, some of which researchers are only just beginning to fully understand, cause invisible damage which takes weeks to repair.

If it happens again before the damage is repaired, the effect is amplified. As a result, having two mild head injuries in just three weeks can be equivalent to a major concussion, with serious long-term effects or even death.

And yes, that’s after a mild traumatic brain injury. We’re not talking here about victims of high speed road traffic collisions or soldiers being battered by high explosives. We are talking about exactly the type of injury where a rugby player is knocked out cold.

A huge upheaval is going on right now in the United States as the NFL faces law suits from former players suffering the horrendous, life-changing consequences of repeated head injuries. A number of different factors are at play in the NFL compared with rugby, not least of which is the level of recklessness traditionally encouraged by wearing a helmet and your own body weight in padding. In an effort to change this culture, the entire sport is having to change the way it coaches young players.

And rugby, a sport in which the players have become significantly bigger, faster and stronger in just a couple of generations, is going to face similar issues in a few years if it isn’t careful. Do all the gym work you want, it doesn’t make your skull thicker, and the energy imparted by those tackles is only getting higher.

And, just by the by, football needs to be more aware of this issue as well. A tragic series of deaths and Fabrice Muamba’s incredibly close call have transformed the sport’s approach to players’ cardiac health. Head injuries could be the sport’s next ticking time bomb.

The signs are not good according to a recent report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which looked at clubs’ awareness and use of the Consensus in Sport (CIS) guidelines for assessing concussion.

As reported in Science Omega: “The results revealed that 28 per cent of football clubs had not heard of the CIS guidelines. Only one in 10 clubs carried out concussion symptom scores and just half of teams who were aware of the guidelines used tests to measure both cognitive assessment and symptoms following a concussion.”

I desperately hope Jamie Roberts comes through this weekend in good health. And I hope some young footballer doesn’t find him or herself afflicted with long-term cognitive impairment after returning too soon after a concussion.

But I fear that at some point this issue is going to claim a life.

Today is the day

Never mind the negativity and the lies and the manic spraying of money on swing states, this election had debates that mattered, a great home video and binders full of women. And a hurricane. Cool.

There was a distinct sense of "gotcha" when Mr Romney produced his 47% moment; the feeling that in an unguarded moment the real man had been revealed. And by that I don't mean he doesn't care about the opinions of half the population of the country he wants to lead; more that he is prepared to say he doesn't care about their opinions in order to get people to give him money for his campaign.

After that Mr Romney performed a comeback in the first debate that shocked everyone, including most of his supporters and probably Mr Romney. President Obama was so bad that if it had been a horse race a stewards' inquiry would have followed.

In the subsequent debates President Obama became reacquainted as to the difference between his arse and elbow, while Mr Romney gave him a helping hand with his lovely little line about being brought "binders full of women". Sounds more like a Clinton policy initiative.

And then we got The Storm. Like a deus ex Atlantica, Sandy surged up from the Caribbean, and turned into a deliciously named Frankenstorm by sucking energy off a series of other weather systems and, it seemed, the Mitt Romney campaign. Not even he could pander to a storm, and all President Obama had to do was be as presidential as we know he can be.

Fortunately, he IS presidential and has good judgement when it comes to crises like this, and it showed as Republican New Jersey Governor Christ Christie was moved to paeans to the President.

And so now it's all about tonight, except that nearly 40% of Floridians have already voted in early voting. It was a 5-5 tie in the traditional early vote at the New Hampshire hamlet of Dixville Notch, which I think is great.

You really do have to love the whackiness of a democratic process which has been defined by a bootleg video and a hurricane. Bring it on!

Sportspeople not talking bollocks

High profile sports people are, mostly, idiots. Never mind the physical prowess or skill, when they begin opening their mouths it tends to be to moan, gloat or swear.

In the past couple of weeks we’ve been treated to the classy, asterisked verbiage of John Terry and Anton Ferdinand, the always-charming thoughts of Derek Chisora and David Haye, and today there is some magnificently self-serving bollocks from Luis Suarez.

Suarez bleats and whinges about the political power of Manchester United being repsonsible for his ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra. However, anyone who read the extensive documents released by the panel investigating his behaviour towards Patrice Evra was left with little doubt that the Uruguayan was unreliable, untrustworthy and guilty as sin.

Michael Johnson is a man for whom I must confess a certain degree of doey-eyed man love

So it comes as something of a relief when we are treated to some genuinely elevating and thoughtful offerings from sportspeople.

Stand up Michael Johnson and Bradley Wiggins, and take a bow. These two indulge not in cheeky references to gang rape or chiding about the sexual habits of an opponent’s mother. Neither seems possessed of Suarezian narcissism.

Michael Johnson is a man for whom I must confess a certain degree of doey-eyed man love, because his history-defining sprinting feats over 200m and 400m are connected to a highly articulate and sophisticated brain.

In today’s Daily Telegraph he speaks as eloquently as always, this time about what he perceives as the inappropriateness of Oscar Pistorius competing with able-bodied runners in the 400m, an event which Johnson graced and dominated.

"I consider Oscar a friend of mine, but he knows I am against him running, because this is not about Oscar; it’s not about him as an individual, it is about the rules you will make and put in place for the sport which will apply to anyone, and not just Oscar. If it was just about Oscar my position would be: ‘Absolutely, let him run.’"

One is left with the abiding impression that Johnson admires Pistorius but would have had clear and well-founded reservations about lining up alongside him in a race. I’m not sure I agree with Johnson but I sure as hell respect his opinion and would love to hear even more from him on this sort of subject.

And then there’s Wiggins, whose sideburns and sense of the moment have already catapulted him into Tour de France folklore.

First he ripped into a small number of journalists for their repeated, unjustifiable suggestions that he uses performance enhancing drugs. No snide remarks or haughty refusal to engage from our Wiggo, just a straighforward rebuttal laced with earthy language and blunt requests to shut hell up about the subject. The rest of the assembled media burst into applause, which is not something which happens often.

Then he earned the epithet Le Gentleman from the French media for holding up the peloton to allow arch rival Cadel Evans to catch up after suffering multiple punctures due to tacks being thrown on the road. Wiggins, it seems, is a man who unquestionably wants to win, but to do so cleanly and with a certain amount of dignity. A sort of anti-Terry if you like.

That was underlined by today’s dig at British celebrity culture: "It’s nice in sport when people stop you in the street and respect you for something you have achieved.”

So, well done Messrs Wiggins and Johnson. Everyone loves a winner, but winners who aren’t also complete losers are more rare and very welcome.

Something lost, something gained?

This morning's Today show featured the latest installment in the ongoing, possibly eternal, battle between police and the media over the latter's role in preventing and solving crime.

John Battle from ITN argued quite sensibly that the police shouldn't be allowed to simply demand their footage in a "fishing expedition" for possible crimes at the Dale Farm standoff.

Chief constable Andy Trotter, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, came right back with some pretty coherent points about the fact that they could only request this information with a court order.

This little vignette is a microcosm of the frenzied re-examination of the role of the media in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

It demonstrates why, as a country, we should re-evaluate how the media functions within our society.

Those who dislike the tendency (some might say deep-seated desire) of some sectors of the media to drag up highly personal information and parade it as news would love to see strict rules of accountability for print media.

Editors, and not just those who particularly trade in muck raking, are outraged by the idea of politicians decreeing what they can and cannot print.

Somewhere in the midst of all this execration is a compromise position.

Journalists should be held to a high standard of accuracy, honesty and responsibility for their work. This includes not invading people's privacy unfairly, which is a judgement call and therefore always open to interpretation.

I believe this could be addressed by establishing a genuine journalists' qualification and oversight body along the lines of the GMC for doctors. All newspapers would be obliged to employ only journalists who are registered with this body, and it should have the power to train, strike off and fine its members

However, with such demands should come rights. Journalists who are members of this body should be allowed free access to a wider range of official public documents and events than is the case for the general public. In her well-argued piece last year, Heather Brooke pointed out that British journalists simply do not have the same level of access to such information as their American counterparts and are therefore less able to report freely.

Similarly, clearly defined rights to confidentiality with sources should be enshrined in the same way as doctor-patient confidentiality.

There are many other areas which might be addressed, including the sanctity or otherwise from police seizure of recorded material, but the fundamental principle is this: the media is immensely powerful and its journalists should be recognised as such. Grant a genuine, legislated balance of rights and responsibilities to journalists and newspapers and then a framework exists for the industry to function and grow effectively.

It will never be perfect and mistakes will always be made on both sides, but it is better than ineffective self regulation or heavy handed legislation which seeks only to limit and control.