Will other competitions follow suit?

The Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby have today confirmed that World Rugby has approved an optional period of up to three minutes to be added to the HIA process for the remainder of this season in the Aviva Premiership and Greene King IPA Championship.

The additional time will be available for the collection of in-game saliva samples. This means the HIA period can run from a minimum of 10 minutes to a maximum of 13 minutes.

The samples are being collected for a major study led by the University of Birmingham as part of its work to develop an objective pitch-side test to diagnose concussion.

The ground breaking concussion study led by the University of Birmingham replaced the King-Devick research and was brought in at the start of the season.

“Player recruitment for this study has been excellent and samples are steadily coming in from the first five rounds of matches,” said RFU chief medical officer Simon Kemp.  

“However, we recognise this study is taking place in a live-match environment and that it can take some players longer to produce the saliva sample required. As a result we applied to World Rugby for an additional three minutes for the HIA1 assessment, if required, to ensure sufficient time for samples to be collected.”

[England Rugby]