The much-lauded Kalyn Ponga is the Newcastle Knights NRL Bobblehead. Literally and officially.
A bobblehead is a small figurine characterised by a disproportionately large head moving around over a relatively smaller body. Well, that's the polite use of the term and the only one suitable for a family newspaper.
I recommend staying away from the dark reaches of the interwebs where you can find all kinds of unsavoury things that you are better off not knowing, such as Mark Latham's deleted tweets.
Anyhoos, the KP Bobblehead is official NRL merchandise and available via the Knights merch shop for $20, or $18 if you are a member of the Knights. The KP bobblehead is made from resin and stands at 18 centimetres.
KP suffered his fourth concussion in 10 months in the Knights win against the Tigers last month. Sure, in the olden times some bloke would whack the ammonium carbonate under a player's schnoz and he'd just "get on with it' according to Gus the Oracle.
Upon receiving the smelling salts, a player would retreat, sometimes with the assistance of a trainer, with wobbly legs to the defensive or attacking line. Sometimes they would jump up and join the wrong team. But they'd "get on with it". Ex-players turned TV commentators might even muffle a laugh.
And later other blokes would reminisce for decades about how tough a bloke was for playing on after being knocked out. Toughness, shown through a capacity to carry-on despite obvious injury, remains a marker of rugby league heroics.
Ponga's latest concussion has rightly created concerns among officials, commentators and fans about his future in rugba league.
The 24-year-old superstar flew to Canada for an appointment with an international concussion specialist for an assessment of neurological markers. Only after the Knights receive the results of these tests will the club begin considering when Ponga might make his return to the NRL.
He missed the final six weeks of last season recovering from concussion. This time the Knights have been reluctant to put a timeline on his comeback. All collision sports are under the head injury management microscope.
Repetitive brain injury expert Dr Lee Goldstein, a psychiatrist and researcher at the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center at Boston University, refers to repeated hits to the head as "the bobblehead effect". According to Dr Goldstein, axons, capillaries, and blood vessels in the brain are sheared when a "bobblehead" head on a rigid neck accelerates back and forth.
Smaller repeated hits - as opposed to spectacular collisions - are the real danger. Hits can be dangerous to the brain of a child, a teenager or an adult. No advance in head gear is likely to change such danger in collision sports. The bobblehead effect is immune to helmets.
Bobbleheads as novelty items started to pop up in American sports in the early 1900s. They grew in popularity in the 1960s thanks to major league baseball. Interest waned but was reignited in the 90s and remains strong today. There is a National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The museum has a store that sells a wide variety of bobbleheads, ranging from President Volodymyr Zelensky to Jesus Christ. The US even celebrates National Bobblehead Day each year on January 7. A signed bobblehead of MMA fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov is for sale on eBay for over $US5000.
But there's also a superstition around the "curse of the bobblehead", particularly in baseball. In 2011, following a run of player injuries, financial calamities and previous season meltdowns during vital game moments, New York Mets' manager Fred Wilpon said the team was "snake bitten". This means unlucky or doomed to misfortune.
New York Times baseball writer Ken Belson then pointed out that if Wilpon wanted to at least figure out why so many of his players end up on the disabled list, he ought to look at "the curse of the bobblehead".
For the previous decade, nearly every player who was commemorated with a bobblehead sponsored by Gold's Horseradish was injured or ended up performing poorly.
I feel for KP. And I feel those who are marketing Knights' doodads. They too seem snake bitten. Last year it was the car air freshener that was illegal to hang from the rear vision mirror in NSW as it was intended.
This year it's the KP bobblehead doll and KP has flown to Canada for tests that may include a search for what Dr Goldstein refers to as "the bobblehead effect".
The curse of the bobblehead may not be limited to the New York Mets.
But if anyone can beat it, Ponga can. He can beat anyone or anything.
Let's sincerely hope that medical specialists give him the nod and he returns safely to his side-stepping best sooner rather than later.
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