This Saturday, December 21, Racing 92 traveled to the Montpellier HR pitch for the 12th day of the Top 14. If the Ile-de-France residents left with the defensive bonus (defeat, 21-17), they especially had a big scare for the one of their teammates. Indeed, the rear racingman Sam James suffered an impressive knockout at the very end of the meeting.
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James KO and the Top 14 worried…
Launched to try to offer victory to his team, the Englishman was regularly tackled by Lenni Nouchi. Unfortunately, in his fall, he hit the arm and then the knee of Jan Serfontein. “He was unconscious and he convulsed, I've rarely seen a knockout like that”, confided in shock Nolann Le Garrec after the meeting, according to Rugby Rama.
Instantly, the player finds himself unconscious on the ground and the game stops. Logically, the doctors approach the person concerned and the match referee asks to watch the action againwith the help of video refereeing. Subsequently, his decision generated a lot of misunderstanding, despite clear explanations from Tual Trainini.
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Clearly, the match official notes that the gesture leading to James' knockout is involuntary and the fact that the English back is particularly low makes any sanction against the South African center difficult. “I have no image of foul play from this number 12. It's completely accidental, the player falls on his knee and he goes forward, so it's end of the match”, argue Tual Trainini.
For some observers, closing the match on a ball that went forward because the player holding it was no longer able to control it, remains complicated to understand. Without linking this decision to the result of the match, French international Nolann Le Garrec wondered: “You need to see the images again. It won't be up to me to talk about it and there will be enough discussion around it, but doing an action from eighty meters, then seeing it stop on a not too controlled gesture on one of our players and a KO the same, that raises questions, right?”
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Next, the Racing 92 assistant coach Dimitri Szarzewski gave news of the playerindicating in particular that he had been immediately transported to the nearest hospital. “The news is reassuring. He has regained consciousness and the doctor is rather optimistic. Obviously, it's quite impressive since he remained on the ground unconscious for a moment, but he should be fine”, he punctuates according to Rugby Rama.
How to protect players from all types of dangerous contact in rugby? Is it possible to avoid some of them? Three weeks after the KO of Anthony Belleau during Clermont – Castres, the subject returns to the table through a different scenario, but with the same doubts in mind. All this, hoping that Sam James recovers as quickly as possible.
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