It's definitely a very sad situation, was listening to the boy's father on Off The Ball rugby podcast, by all accounts there were multiple opportunties to remove him from play.

As a note - the scrum cap is not beneficial. It will definitely help prevent bumps/bruises/cuts but unfortunately cannot prevent concussion type injuries - see American Football for more details on that.

I'm coaching at the High School level in the USA, and we see a large mix of players - the boys who are highly conditioned due to American Football and the boys who think Rugby looks great but they don't play contact sports. As you can imagine, the collisions between them can sometimes be very one-sided. In both cases it's very difficult to instill the habit of not putting the head in harms way.

The US has much better pre-injury and post-injury protocols as defined by the respective State school sport bodies - I didn't think baseball players would have concussions, but seeing some of the collisions between runners and catchers at home plate, they are pretty equivalent to what happens on a rugby field, apparently it happens quite a bit in swimming too for younger kids. Again, it's pointing to how much more teenage brains are impacted by these collisions. Rugby over here, while generally not beholden to the State School Sports bodies, tends to follow their directives. The concussion debate in American Football also has prompted the rugby bodies over here to act, but there are still cases where concussion in rugby is considered "just part of the game" or not relevant because football players often lead with their head.

More can still be done, especially at the time of injury - the issue of coaches keeping injured players on is the same everywhere. Our coaching staff's approach is better safe than sorry, no matter how eager the kids are to get back on the field - "your health is your wealth". All that said, I never had a coach in my time playing schoolboy rugby in Connacht who kept players on the field when injured or "dinged", I'd hate to think that has changed at home.

As someone who has boys who play schools rugby, the death of the boy in Ulster is very disturbing and upsetting.
I have seen enough injuries in schools rugby to be almost relieved when my lads come off the pitch. Of concern is the lack of skills or knowledge to deal with serious (head) injuries available on the sidelines. It should be mandatory training for coaches; and schools and clubs should have to carry that responsibility and have at least one professional available, not necessarily for each match, but at least available in the school grounds when there are a number of matches on. Unfortunately, I have witnessed too many coaches who just want to get the player back on the field, especially if he is a good one.

I am not sure is it a placebo or not, but I think the use of scrum caps can help. My youngest always prefers a scrum cap, but I'm not sure if this makes him braver.

There's a whole series of stories on this on the Guardian site.

www.theguardian.com/sport/series/concussion

Great stuff but not an easy read.

www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/rugby-s-d...other-life-1.1631020

One of the best articles I have read in a long long time.