Daily Archives: 8 November 2017
Being in a Scotland international camp is always a pleasure and a privilege and, in the case of this autumn, a mighty relief.
I should go back a few months to explain what’s been going on with me this past while, to the 25th minute of a Scarlets game against Edinburgh on 23 September.
That’s when I went low in a tackle on Magnus Bradbury and caught his hip on my head. It was an innocuous collision. Looking at it, you wouldn’t have said there was any great force in it. You wouldn’t have called it a big hit.
I’ve been knocked unconscious before playing rugby, but this was different. When I was 20 and playing for the Scotland Under-21s against Wales I was out cold for about five minutes and then spent an hour in an ambulance not knowing where I was, before doing a night in hospital while my head cleared.
This time, I was out for about 10 or 15 seconds. I woke up to the sound of my own snoring. The minute I came around, I knew what had happened. The medics were tending to my neck, doing all the things they needed to do to make sure I was OK, but my neck was fine. I told them, ‘You can let go of my neck, boys, there’s nothing wrong with it’. But that’s procedure in these cases.