Women’s Rugby World Cup to adopt flashing mouthguards to signal head impact

Japan's Yukino Tsujisaki blocks Australia's Teagan Levi during bronze medal Vancouver Sevens women's rugby action, in Vancouver, B.C., Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

Mouthguards that light up to indicate a player has suffered a significant head impact will be used at the Women’s Rugby World Cup, officials announced Monday.

Mouthguards will flash red if the impact is severe enough to potentially cause a concussion. The referee will then stop play and the player will leave the field for a head injury assessment.

The aim is to introduce the system into all top-flight rugby.

Dr Eanna Falvey, the chief medical officer at World Rugby, said every player at the Women’s World Cup, which starts on August 22, will wear the mouthguards, apart from two who wear braces.

He added that in the men’s game around 85 percent of players wear so-called “smart mouthguards”, which are not compulsory.

The mouthguards measure how much a player’s head moves and rotates in a collision. When it registers an acceleration above a set limit, it will flash.

World Rugby data indicates that while concussion rates are similar in women’s and men’s rugby, “head acceleration” events are significantly less likely for female players.

World Rugby brought in the “instrumented mouthguard” at the women’s international tournament in 2023 before introducing it globally the following year.

Scotland hooker George Turner was the first elite male player to be taken off for a head injury assessment after his gumshield detected a potentially worrying head impact in a match against France in last year’s Six Nations.

Dr Lindsay Starling, World Rugby’s science and medical manager, speaking alongside Falvey at a Twickenham press conference on Monday, said the aim was to help players rather than merely accumulate information.

Foul play

“The data set that has grown over the last year is huge,” he said.

“So now it’s actually making sure that it doesn’t just become a data collection exercise but we actually understand what that data means and then start putting things in place for players such that they are actually benefiting from the data that’s being collected.”

Starling added mouthguards could help identify foul play, although she warned: “What everybody needs to understand that, in the same way, a player can get concussed from a pretty small head impact, foul play (can take place) without registering anything substantial.”

Head injuries have become an issue in rugby union as the game has become increasingly physical in the professional era.

A group of nearly 300 former players, including England World Cup-winners Steve Thompson and Phil Vickery, launched legal action over brain injuries in December 2023.

The players allege World Rugby, the Welsh Rugby Union and England’s Rugby Football Union failed to establish reasonable measures to protect their health and safety.

Thompson and ex-Wales star Alix Popham have both revealed they suffer from early-onset dementia.

Injuries from head blows are said to have caused other disorders including motor neurone disease, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease.