Concussion left Blues cult hero fearing All Blacks call-up

Former Blues forward and captain Tom Robinson has opened up on his struggles with concussion, even getting as bad as fearing an international call-up.

Robinson, 30, was a cult figure in his time playing in New Zealand, given his long flowing red hair and standing close to 2m tall.

Since his debut in 2019, Robinson made more than 50 appearances for the Blues at Super Rugby level, before taking up a contract with Toyota Verblitz in Japan last year.

However, last month Robinson took to social media to announce his shock retirement from the game.

In a post on Instagram, Robinson revealed a series of concussions had left him fearing a call-up to Ian Foster’s All Blacks.

“The thing with concussions, you can never really prove if you’ve got a concussion or not,” he said.

“You can do the return-to-play protocol, but it’s not like a knee where you can get a scan on your brain and it comes up if you have a concussion.

“This battle would go on sometimes for months. And I remember at the end of the Blues season, there was a bit of talk about me being unlucky not to be in the All Blacks. But I was having this battle in my mind and I remember thinking ‘I really hope I don’t get called in’.

“That was the last place I wanted to be. That was the dream. Dream of my whole life was to become an All Black and here I was hoping that I wouldn’t get called in. That was the last place I wanted to be.”

Robinson detailed that his career was plagued by head knocks, starting with one at schoolboy level and continuing all through his professional career.

Things even got so bad for the versatile forward that he faked an injury to avoid having to play while worrying about his health.

“In 2021, I had three concussions pretty much within one season,” he detailed. “At that stage I was up to about six or seven in total, I can’t remember. Too many concussions.

“I remember my last season for Northland, I started to get stars in my vision. Even when I wasn’t doing contact stuff like lifting in a lineout. And it had happened before but not this often.

“At this point, I started to pull out of quite a few games, I hated doing it. I dreaded doing it because I felt I was letting the team down. At this stage, I didn’t want people questioning whether these concussions are real or not.

“I remember chopping firewood and I really didn’t want to play, I remember thinking if I missed this block of wood and hit myself in the leg with the axe, I won’t have to play.

“And in actual fact that week I faked a hamstring injury. And I pulled out.”

In 2021, Robinson deputised as Blues captain for the entire Super Rugby Aotearoa campaign, after regular skipper Patrick Tuipulotu was unavailable.

Away from rugby, Robinson also teaches yoga, and has founded his own sunscreen company, Zinc or Swim, with former Blues teammate Josh Goodhue.

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This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission