League legends have raised fears over Newcastle Knights star Kalyn Ponga‘s long-term health after he was again rubbed from a game due to a failed head injury assessment.
Ponga left the field in just the eighth minute of the Knights’ Friday night clash with the Roosters after Matt Lodge collected him high with a lazy arm.
The hit left Andrew Johns and Cameron Smith concerned.
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“When you get head knocks they accumulate,” Johns said on Nine’s half-time coverage.
“Sometimes you just get tapped on the head and you can get concussed. That wasn’t really a big contact, which is a real worry for Kalyn.”
“Real concern, not only for Kalyn, but the Newcastle Knights now,” Smith added.
The 24-year-old is understood to have been left “shattered” by his latest concussion battle.
“Speaking to Newcastle Knights officials, they say understandably he is sitting in the sheds watching this game and he is very shattered and very dejected,” sideline reporter Danika Mason said on Nine’s NRL coverage.
The head knock is Ponga’s third this season, having failed a HIA in Newcastle’s loss to Penrith last month, and in Origin II just weeks later.
The Bunker deemed his concussion during the Origin clash a category one head knock, meaning he was forced into a mandatory seven-day stand down per the NRL’s current concussion protocols.
Johns has been vocal on the impact of concussions from his playing days on his post-football life.
He has previously pondered whether his diagnosed frontal lobe epilepsy, which has given him seizures, was caused by concussive impacts while playing football.
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“I’ve had some dramas with concussion stuff after I’ve retired but that’s the consequences,” he told Wide World of Sports’ Freddy and the Eighth last year.
“I knew what I was getting myself into playing this game. If you’re a boxer or a UFC fighter, you go in the ring or octagon knowing there could be some consequences from putting everything on the line.”
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