Johnny Sexton's own experience leaves him better placed than most to comment and the Ireland captain insists speculation about the extent of James Ryan’s head injury is the "one thing that doesn’t help".
Ryan was removed from the field of play just two minutes into Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations win over England after colliding head on head with Charlie Ewels, who was sent off for the challenge.
It was the 25-year-old’s seventh head injury assessment (HIA) in the last 15 months.
After just 82 seconds, England are down to 14 men. Charlie Ewels receives a red card for this challenge on James Ryan.
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"Yeah, definitely [it’s a tough spot] when it’s you and you're in that situation, it’s really tough because speculation is the one thing that doesn’t help," said the Leinster out-half.
"All I can say about it is he was in good form after the game, he was in good health. It’s not like he’s struggling big time.
"I think the hit that he got was particularly bad. I don’t think many people would have stayed on after it, whether they’d had a concussion previously or not.
"It’s kind of one of those ones where he’s bounced back pretty well from it."
Sexton, while playing in France with Racing 92 in 2014, was stood down for three months due to concussion issues and missed last year’s match against France following a head injury sustained against Wales in the opening round.
The 36-year-old, who last week confirmed his intention to retire after next year’s World Cup, added: "He’s going to see the best people in the world about it and make sure that he is 100% when he comes back, whenever that is.
"The IRFU will look after him, Leinster will look after him and that’s one of the best things about being [based] at home is that you are really well looked after.
"He won’t come back until he’s 100% ready, so whenever you do see him, it means that he’s good to go.
"He’s played a lot of rugby since his last one and he hasn’t had any issues and he’s taken some big knocks.
"I don’t think his tolerance or anything is decreasing. It was a pretty bad wallop and that can happen in the game."
Lock Iain Henderson, who came on in place of Ryan, said: "It's a highly spoken about area at the minute, but as I said, [James] has, and I think all the players have, full confidence in what our medical staff are doing."
Ireland’s wins over Wales and England mean that Saturday’s clash against Scotland comes with the added incentive of lifting a trophy in front of a home crowd for the first time since 2004.
"That has been the motivation over the last few weeks, meaning to get us to this situation," said Sexton, whose four successful kicks at the weekend brought his Ireland tally to 975 points.
"Now we are here you have kind of to forget about it in a weird way and say 'it is just about a performance’, hopefully we can get our best performance out there.
"We're coming up against a very good team, they've had some big wins away from home over the last couple of years and we know they're going to come here and throw the ball around, they've got nothing to lose.
"They've got the players to hurt you.
"We've to make sure we are spot on in every part of our game, that's our focus.
"I spoke about that a few weeks ago, now we park that and make sure we do the things we have to."
Follow all of Ireland's Six Nations games via our live blogs on rte.ie/sport and on the RTÉ News App or listen to live radio coverage on RTÉ Radio 1.
Watch live coverage of Wales v Italy (2.15pm) and France v England (8pm) this Saturday, 19 March on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
