Dr Fisher knows his players. No one size fits all | Graham Cornes

One day, someone will look back and regret how poorly Port Adelaide club doctor Mark Fisher has been treated during the club’s concussion controversy, writes Graham Cornes.

Regret. It’s such a wasted emotion – tormenting yourself for something that you should have done differently. Yet we all have regrets.

My biggest regret from those football days of playing and coaching has nothing to do with performance or outcomes.

It is that I didn’t respect enough the contributions of the volunteers that sustain a football club.

Be it the trainers, the boot studder, the room staff, timekeepers, doormen. They all sacrificed time with family or work to serve a football club they loved.

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My face burns from the ongoing shame that I took them for granted and didn’t show them the respect for which they were so worthy.

Then there were the club doctors. Some clubs only had one. We had two at Glenelg: Dr Owen Bowering and Dr Bill Duguid, both wonderful men who were more than footy club doctors.

Sam Powell-Pepper of the Power in the hands of the club doctor during the 2023 AFL Round 19 match between the Port Adelaide and Collingwood. Picture: Sarah Reed

Aliir Aliir leaves the oval after colliding with Lachie Jones. Picture: Sarah Reed

In so many cases they became the family doctors to the generations of footballers that they had treated for footy injuries. Kindly, avuncular men, they surely had much better things to do with their time than to look after spoiled footballers on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights. On match day, which in the old days was always a Saturday, they would sit together in the dugout, dissecting the game as it unfolded, always there when injury inevitably struck.

Of course, we respected those in the medical profession but because they were always there, I for one took their footy club service for granted. They are long gone now. Through the playing and coaching years, I don’t think I ever shared with them the appreciation I felt, but never expressed. My shame.

In this era of professional football, every club has a club doctor. Some are more visible than others. You can’t mistake the Western Bulldog’s long-serving club doctor, Gary Zimmerman. He, with the luxurious moustache is instantly recognisable. Conversely, the Crows club doctor, Mark Cesana, blends into the background. But for the red vest that says DOCTOR, he could be one of the trainers. It doesn’t lessen his importance to the team though.

The first club doctor at the Adelaide Football Club was Brian Sando. He was the medical officer to Olympic and Commonwealth Games teams, had his own practice yet gave his valuable time to our fledgling club and its players. A dedicated man with a dry wit and wicked sense of humour, he left us far too soon.

It’s the same for most AFL teams.

The club doctor is omnipresent but not always visible. They certainly don’t do it for the money. Any honorarium they receive has to fit into the club’s soft cap. Aside from the patients in their private practices, they have 44 footballers (and their families) to who they are on call, 24 hours a day.

Then there is Dr Mark Fisher at Port Adelaide

I may be biased. I first met him at South Adelaide, where for a time he was a club doctor.

Self-absorbed in the pressure of coaching, I doubt I showed him the respect for which he was worthy. However, along with the Power’s first club medico, another wonderful man in Dr Peter Barnes, Mark Fisher has been more than a football doctor.

He has been the family doctor to both Chad and Kane. For the Cornes boys, particularly Kane with his well-documented issues of anxiety as well as the medical conditions of his sons, he was more than the family doctor. He would answer the phone at any time of day or night. With a reassuring nature, balanced by a no-nonsense mindset, he guided them through those family medical crises.

Western Bulldogs club doctor Dr. Gary Zimmerman checks on Ed Richards of the Bulldogs. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Chad will hear no criticism: “great doctor, would do anything for you. 100 per cent trust in him and the decisions he makes.” I’m sure the other Port football families would say the same thing.

Having been slapped with a massive $100,000 fine, Port Adelaide and Dr Fisher are now under intense scrutiny for the way in which the Aliir Aliir and Lachie Jones incident in the Showdown was handled. The fine is a massive over-reaction from the AFL – another indication of how much more severely the non-Victorian teams are treated by the AFL. Worse is that $50,000 of that fine has to come from the club’s soft cap which restricts its expenditure on coaches, assistant-coaches and support staff. Someone could lose their job.

To any outside observer it was a sickening clash with devastating consequences for team balance. It seemed improbable that either player could return, yet miraculously, eight minutes later, Aliir trotted back out, and resumed his position in defence.

Only those who were in the Port dugout last Saturday night know exactly what happened, but the judgement call of Dr Mark Fisher, an eminently qualified medical professional with over 40 years of service to the game, was that he wasn’t concussed and could resume. With the responsibility of making a decision in real time, under intense scrutiny, he decided the full sport concussion assessment test (SCAT) wasn’t necessary.

Aliir Aliir of the Power down along with Lachie Jones of the after colliding during last weekend’s Showdown. Picture: Sarah Reed

Like the battlefield surgeon who has to dispense with accepted protocol, he made a judgement call.

Of course, those of us who weren’t there, those with vested opposition interests or those who love to criticise for click-bait responses have been vocal with vitriolic criticism, as is the manner of 21st century social media.

The AFL was correct in asking the club for an explanation, but ridiculously over-reactive by imposing such a massive fine.

Dr Fisher knows his players. No one size fits all. Some players have the ability to withstand harder hits than others.

AFL engulfed by concussion compensation claims

Genetics can play a part in resistance to hard hits. The SCAT may be the standard by which concussion is assessed but it’s not an easy test to pass.

There are plenty of people with no incidence of head trauma who would fail it!

Dr Fisher was quick to respond to the criticism by acknowledging an error, but it could be that he’s taken a hit for the team.

It wasn’t enough to appease the AFL which is being engulfed with increasing compensation claims from ex-players claiming long term effects from head trauma sustained during their playing days.

It threatens to reach epidemic proportions, although strangely, it is only ex-AFL players who seem to be afflicted. Most of us of us who played in the old days in other competitions when protection of the head was non-existent seem to have escaped. I wonder why?

So now the AFL has no alternative but to employ independent doctors at each ground to assess players with injury. That’s going to cost a lot more than the $100,000 it has gouged from Port Adelaide.

The most disappointing aspect of this saga, is that the reputation of a good man and good doctor has been impugned. It shows a lack of respect for the contribution that volunteers make. It may be a professional sporting competition but it cannot function without volunteers. One day someone will look back and regret how poorly a doctor has been treated and realised how undervalued he has been.