“In sports concussions, you’re basically getting a heated up brain and a higher temperature when you sustain an injury causes inflammation.

“By reducing the temperature as quickly as possible, and accurately, it only reduces your temperature back down to normal temperature, we’ve found that players find it useful in regards to their immediate symptoms. They feel better, the initial symptoms and signs resolve and they seem to recover quicker as well.

“The other main use is for us to reduce that risk of developing concussion symptoms or prolonged symptoms that will delay the recovery.

“We’re not trying to short circuit the 11-day stand-down period, we want players to feel better sooner and be able to train without symptoms sooner.”

Garrick is a keen proponent of the technology, having used it after three separate head knocks this season, and said his sensitivity to light had been reduced markedly when he had worn the headgear.

“It actually feels really nice, especially when your brain’s rattled, you’re overwhelmed, you’ve got a headache – it eases that straight away,” he says.

“And the fact that you’re doing something rather than just resting or not doing anything, it just feels good to be doing something.”

Whether there is in fact a placebo effect at work has been raised in neuroscience circles, as well as queries that the five-year University study of the PolarCap’s effectiveness did not include double blind parameters.

EO chairman Jamie Fuller - who is leading PolarCap’s launch - acknowledged this in explaining the 132 concussions that were studied by Sweden’s Lund University in conjunction with the Swedish ice hockey league, where 61 athletes were treated with the device and 71 were not.

Results of the study showed 93% of players who were treated with the device had returned to play three weeks after their concussion, compared to 70% who were not, with the trend continuing over five-week and 100-day post-concussion periods.

“It was applied randomly by the University,” Fuller says. “There was no formula as to who wore the device and who didn’t. There wasn’t, ‘Geez that’s a bad concussion, you won’t be part of the testing’. Normally there’s a crossover but in this situation you can’t have two groups with and without concussion and swap them over and run the same tests, because you can’t give someone a concussion.

“The critical thing is that there’s a very narrow band that you want to get your temperature to, and if you get your temperature there you can minimise inflammation and swelling on the brain. Too cold and you’ve got hypothermia. Not cold enough and there’s no effect.”

For the panel of ex-players impacted by concussion to varying degrees, the consensus was emphatic.

“This is the first time any of us have come across an actual treatment apart from taking four weeks off and doing nothing,” Roberts says.

“That’s really progressive, back when we played it was a wet sponge on the head and ‘how are you feeling?’ I just wish I had something like this when I was playing.”

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