A clash of heads with former Leinster teammate Brendan Macken forced Johnny Sexton from the Ricoh Arena pitch less than ten minutes into Saturday's Champions Cup game between Leinster and Wasps.
The Leinster out-half did not return to the game after being replaced by Cathal Marsh.
Subsequent reports suggested that Sexton had failed a head injury assessment. Due to a mix-up, these turned out to be false.
Leinster confirmed today that Sexton in fact passed two HIAs and will face another one on Tuesday.
Speaking to George Hook on Newstalk, former IRB chief medical adviser Barry O'Driscoll - who had just heard Leo Cullen describe the Sexton incident as a 'head knock' - said that what he saw was 'clearly a concussion'.
I despair a little bit when I hear bright rugby men like Leo Cullen saying that. It makes you wonder how far have we come and when are we ever going to get the word across and educate the youngsters. That was clearly a concussion. You don't have to have a head knock [for it] to be concussion but 90 per cent of concussions are caused by a head knock. To say that was a head knock but not a concussion, it's just not true, George.
And if you look at the definition of concussion in any consensus statement, somebody who gets an obvious blow to the head and lies motionless on the ground is concussed until they can be proved to have recovered and the minimum at the moment that they can do that in is seven days. And with Jonny Sexton, probably a good bit longer.
Here's the moment when Sexton clashed heads with Macken.
Picture credit: Brendan Moran / SPORTSFILE
