Good luck in your new role. Hope you brain them. And speaking of brains, and the NFL and the NRL for that matter, allow me to point out far and away the most urgent job you have now and one I believe you risk being held legally liable for, if you do not fulfil it.

I refer to effects of concussion, which is the sporting issue of the day in all contact sports around the world. You will be aware of the class action taken out by thousands of former NFL players against their administration for having ignored the dangers they knew about from constant collisions, causing them to be permanently brain damaged. For the record, I write as one recently returned from the United States where I talked to concussion experts and interviewed the most feared linebacker of the NFL in 1969, John Hilton of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who, because of constant concussions, can't spell his name, and doesn't know what year it is.

I believe it is both your moral duty, and your legal duty to do everything you can to look after the welfare of rugby league players, despite their desire, and frequently the desire of their coaches, to have them keep playing despite having suffered major concussion.

Yes, yes, I know, the NRL has recently outlawed the shoulder charge, and that is a good start. And it is commendable your lot participated in a concussion conference in Melbourne last week, and promised to do a better job in enforcing the rules.

But, and here is the crux, Mr Smith. I urgently advise you to look at the case of Ashley Harrison, the Gold Coast Titan, who was on the end of a vicious shoulder last week and knocked motherless. Carried from the field on a stretcher. Not carried off because he was an Omani soccer player and wanted a ride. He was genuinely carried off because his brain had smashed into his skull, and was so bleeding inside that he was KO'd.