Dr Colin Doherty

It's all happening at pitch number five where little Johnny's getting laid out and there's three parents around the pitch and everybody goes, what happened to little Johnny?

Do you know what I mean?

That's what concussion is.

Well, I'll say two things to that.

First of all, he made the decision to give up himself.

He continued to play soccer, but he's given up rugby.

And there are numerous reasons for that.

I wouldn't say that he was particularly scared of the concussion problem.

You know, young 18-year-olds aren't scared of concussion.

But the second thing is, in relation to parent pressure,

really feel I'm trying to talk to parents here because I've talked to the rugby authorities I've talked to government and now the great news is we're going into the Iraq the sport committee tomorrow Matt Campbell who's my collaborator and Andy Dunne an ex-rugby player are coming in to talk to Iraq's committee but parents have the power to change this because they will change politics and they will change the game at ground level and to give you an example so in New Zealand the parents about seven or eight years ago got together and said we don't want

the Islanders who tend to be much taller and bigger and physically more muscle bound than the Caucasian New Zealanders.

We don't want them under 12s playing together.

So now they've created teams by weight

right, in order to even out the game.

Now, I don't think that's the answer to this problem, but I'm just showing you how powerful the mothers and the fathers were in New Zealand in changing the culture at grassroots level.

I think that's what needs to happen.