AFL great’s radical solution after Jeremy Cameron concussion drama

An AFL great has an extreme solution for players dealing with head knocks after a Geelong star refused to leave the ground.

Should Jeremy Cameron have been forced to come from the ground for a HIA?

An AFL great believes suspension might be the way to ensure necessary Head Injury Assessments are conducted for concussion-affected players, after Geelong’s Jeremy Cameron didn’t come from the ground following a hard fall on Friday night.

The superstar forward fell heavily from a marking contest late in the fourth quarter of Geelong’s narrow loss to Port Adelaide at GMHBA Stadium on Friday night, but he stayed involved in the play despite receiving attention from a trainer.

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With little time remaining in a close game and in the midst of a barnstorming comeback, Cameron shrugged off medical observation in a sequence of events that have since been questioned.

However, considering the all-time-high level of concern regarding concussion in the AFL, the discourse has shifted to whether potentially concussion-affected players should be “compelled” to exit the field in the same way bleeding players have been for years.

“This is the hot topic in AFL footy right now,” began Melbourne legend Garry Lyon post-game on Fox Footy.

“It’s head knocks, concussions — it’s about how do you recognise what’s a dangerous head knock and what’s not? And when are you compelled to take a player off the ground and do some sort of a HIA test?”

Should Jeremy Cameron have been forced to come from the ground for a HIA?

Lyon referenced the vision of Cameron’s fourth-quarter fall on Friday night.

“Now, this — this shook the ground, this one from Jeremy Cameron,” Lyon said. “(He) just lay there, stunned for a moment, took a while to get up.

“The doctor — again, we’re sitting in a studio — came out and looked like he was — I’m surmising that he wanted to get him off. There was about five minutes to go. It looked like he wanted to get him off and do a test of some sort.

“Jeremy, obviously, at that stage — a competitor, which we all are — wanted to stay on and got his own way in the end. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph said the “optics” of the incident weren’t good, going on to detail the different types of concussion assessments and their implications.

“There is a level of discretion there with the HIA — it’s all about the optics, as Gillon McLachlan would’ve said,” Ralph told Fox Footy on Friday night.

“I think the optics were really poor here. There (are) two levels of concussion management — the HIA, which is that test across five minutes, and then if the doctor believes they need to take them off the ground that’s the SCAT6, and that would’ve ended his night — that’s a 15-minute test.

“I just think all of us would’ve felt so much more comfortable with Cameron leaving the ground, at least to have that HIA. As you said there, his head thumped into the ground.

“The AFL’s hub, they can send the club the footage. They would’ve seen that footage, but the AFL can’t say to the club ‘you must have an HIA’, or ‘you must have a SCAT 6 there’.

“What’s Cameron going to say? ‘I’m fine’. The doctor comes out and (asks) ‘what do you think?’, (Cameron likely responded) ‘I’m fine, move away’. It’s a really, really difficult decision for the club.

“I’m sure that the AFL’s medical officer will consult with (Geelong) on Monday morning, and they’ll say ‘well, we felt really confident that Jeremy was fine’. But look, we need to have a more prescriptive policy … in that situation, when it’s such a severe hit, that player must leave the ground for an HIA.”

Lyon said the critical point of Friday night’s game played a determining role in Cameron’s desperation to stay involved.

“We’ve had this conversation,” he continued. “(There were) five minutes to go, they’re coming back, they were seven points behind — what do you reckon Jeremy Cameron’s going to say?

“There has to be a system in place that takes that onus or responsibility away from the player.”

Collingwood champion Nathan Buckley was unsure of what such a system would look like.

“What does that look like?” Buckley asked. “Because the doctor can’t put him in a headlock and just drag him off.”

Brisbane Lions legend Jonathan Brown offered his potential resolution.

“The umpire needs a discretion,” he said.

“If they’re going to go all the way and it’s going to be black and white — which it seems like that’s the path we’re heading down — the AFL, from the review or from the booth, needs to have the discretion to call the umpire and say ‘stop the game’.”

In the NRL, play can be stopped in order to facilitate any concussion-affected player exiting the field.

While the AFL has concussion spotters in the ARC that can force players from the ground, that power wasn’t exercised in Cameron’s instance on Friday night.

NRL referees can stop the action if a player suffers a head knock. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

Lyon proffered the idea of suspension for players who didn’t heed the instruction of club doctors.

“If (the doctors) have looked at the vision, and they said ‘that requires us to have a look at him away from the contest’, then that doctor going out there to Jeremy Cameron (says) ‘come off, end of story’,” Lyon said.

“Jeremy Cameron has to come off. If he doesn’t, he gets suspended. This is where we’re at. We’ve got to get serious about it.”

Brown compared his idea to the blood rule, saying the umpire should be able to blow their whistle and stop play in a similar fashion until the potentially concussion-affected player exited the field.

“I’m open to that as well,” Lyon concluded. “But it’s the doctor’s responsibility here.”

At present, Geelong hasn’t listed Cameron with any concussion designation.

Originally published as AFL great’s radical solution after Jeremy Cameron concussion drama