Wallabies player Tatafa Polota-Nau has volunteered to submit himself to an annual check-up by a neurosurgeon to see if anything can be learned in the battle to reduce the long-term brain damage inflicted on the field.
It’s the repetitive nature of some concussions that lead to serious problems, both cognitive and emotional, once a player retires, and this countries’ peak sporting bodies are hopeful they can play a part in reducing the effects.
"The impact is not sometimes seen at the time and we're staring to see that there is a lag when people are developing these clinical problems, down the track many many years later and I think its an area we need to investigate," says Dr Raj Reddy, a neurosurgeon at Prince of Wales Private Hospital.
Many of the country's football codes say they remain vigilant regarding the long term impact of head injuries.
"I think we're at the forefront in terms of how seriously we're taking it, but that's not to say we've got everything in place that we need to, it's ongoing, and we need to remain vigilant," says Ian Pendergast, General Manger of Player Relations with the AFL Players Association.
"I think we'll continue to make steps foward and rationalise laws of the game and look after the interests of the players as best as can be done," says Greg Harris, CEO of the Rugby Union Players Association.
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The medical and sporting worlds are doing their best to understand the long term effects of concussion, and one of those effects is depression.
Dr Reddy says: "Ultimately people find it difficult to focus and concentrate and when they're not able to do tasks that they can normally do, you can see why they can directly become depressed."
The incidence of concussion is lower in football, but FIFA's medical committee is still calling for a mandatory three minute game stoppage to allow doctors time to assess a players' condition.
"They're woking on trying to get the right processess to get the best outcomes," says Australian football player Simon Colosimo.
In the United States, American Football has seen compensation payouts of more than $800 million awarded to players with long-term head injuries. But research shows basketball has a higher incidence of head injuries.
"People are jumping up high, often unsupported and falling down onto hard concrete, or hard surface," says Dr Reddy.
The stance of the major sporting codes and players taking their own preventative measures such as Tatafu Polota-Nau can only be bolstered by further advances in medical research.
"As technology improves and what we are able to detect with out imaging we may start to see subtle changes that are occuring with repeated injuries to the head and that may help prognosticate when we draw the line with what is safe and what is not safe," says Dr Reddy.
