a BBC documentary focusing on concussion in sport<\/a>, Watson revealed he cheated the head-injury assessment after suffering a heavy blow from a Williams shoulder charge.<\/p>\n![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4OB8MYD_170701allblackslions2ndtest_39_JPG.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAnthony Watson receives medical attention during the second test against the All Blacks in 2017.
\nPhoto: photosport\n<\/p>\n
He appeared unsteady on his feet and admitted he was feeling hazy as he entered a room under the grandstand where testing was carried out.<\/p>\n
Watson said he memorised a series of five words to pass a recall section of the test.<\/p>\n
“At that stage I knew the protocols – they give you five words to remember, so it is ‘elbow-apple-carpet-saddle-bubble’. That is what I had.<\/p>\n
“I managed to get through the walking tests and all of that, and then when it came to the words, I knew it off by heart – so I knew I was going to get straight back on.”<\/p>\n
Watson finished the game, and also took the field for most of the Eden Park test.<\/p>\n
Nowadays, the recall part of the assessment used a random sequence of words, rather than a set list.<\/p>\n
Watson, who retired last year, told the BBC he had no regrets.<\/p>\n
“That night I had a pretty mental headache.<\/p>\n
“But if I could go back to then I wouldn’t do anything different – it was the second Lions test. If I report a concussion there, I might rule myself out for next week and then wait four years to potentially do it again.”<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Black Sonny Bill Williams (R) shoulder charges Lions winger Anthony Watson. Photo: photosport British and Irish Lions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-310435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"All](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4OB8N0A_170701allblackslions2ndtest_07_JPG.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n