Document is current

Article History

Accepted: 19 August 2025

First Online: 19 September 2025

Declarations

:

: GT and BJ have received research funding from Prevent Biometrics and World Rugby. KS and MB have received research funding from World Rugby. LS, RT, EF, DS and JB are employed by or contracted as consultants to World Rugby. GT previously conducted consultancy work for World Rugby. KS and SK are employed by the Rugby Football Union. SH receives funding for his PhD studies from the Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby. BJ is a consultant with Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Football League. MC is employed by Premiership Rugby and was previously employed by the Rugby Football Union. POH has previously been contracted by the Rugby Football Union and is employed by Marker Diagnostics UK Ltd, a company developing salivary biomarker testing for sport related concussion. DA and JT declare they have no conflicts of interest.

: Anonymised data are available upon reasonable request by contacting Lindsay Starling (lindsay.starling@worldrugby.org).

: This project was approved by the University’s Research Ethics Committee, University of Ulster (#REC-21–0061) and University of Otago Human Ethics Committee (#H21-056). The study was performed in accordance with the standards of ethics outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.

: All participants provided written consent.

: Not applicable.

: GT conceptualised the research project. All authors were involved in the design and data collection for the study. GT and DA were responsible for the analysis and interpretation of the results. GT and DA drafted the manuscript. All authors critically reviewed and edited the manuscript prior to submission. All authors have read and approved the final version of the paper and agree to be accountable for the work.