Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend says “more work” is required to make good mouthguards “correct” after an alert prompted the momentary withdrawal of prop Zander Ferguson in Saturday’s Six Nations win over England.
Fagerson went off for a head harm evaluation (HIA) after six minutes at Murrayfield, with Elliot Millar-Mills taking his place, earlier than being given the all clear to proceed.
“Yes it was [an alert] and I saw the tackle again – just a normal tackle,” Townsend mentioned.
“I think we have to really watch what we’re doing here. Trust in technology that’s not been proven.”
Smart mouthguards are getting used within the males’s Six Nations for the primary time this yr.
They report the acceleration pressure (G-force) and course of pressure concerned in contacts, generally known as “head acceleration events”, and might present real-time knowledge to a physician or official on the sidelines.
Fagerson is the second Scotland participant impacted by the brand new expertise after hooker George Hooker went off the sector for an HIA within the defeat by France.
Townsend added: “What we’ve been doing over the last few years is making sure that any symptoms that are seen, a number of people can flag up whether someone goes off for an HIA.
“Zander was taken off for 10 minutes after what appeared like a traditional sort out however there was a spike alert from the mouthguard.
“I know in Super Rugby there were a couple of alerts and players were saying, ‘there’s nothing wrong here, I’ve just made a tackle’, so we’ve got to watch that because you don’t want to be taking our best players off the field for 10 minutes if there are no issues around concussion.
“We need to defend our gamers, that is for sure, however there is a bit extra work to do earlier than this expertise is appropriate.”
Townsend was asked if he believed the technology had been rushed in.
“It’s a brand new factor within the Six Nations and it is not been used at membership stage previous to the Six Nations,” he responded. “I’d hope they’d be taught from this incident and clearly George Turner went off for 10 minutes within the earlier sport.
“[We need] to make sure it’s as close to accurate as possible. That’s what we want.
“We have a number of eyes watching and gamers are actually excellent at saying, ‘I’ve had a head harm right here, I’ve to go off’.
