Partner of former Port Adelaide player Sam Mayes reveals concussion concerns

The partner of former Port Adelaide player Sam Mayes has raised questions over the response to head hits during his time at the Power.

New North Adelaide recruit Sam Mayes. Picture: Tom Huntley

The partner of a former Port Adelaide player Sam Mayes says he was returned to the field on multiple occasions after suffering head knocks.

Cassie Burton also says her partner, Mayes, had to rule himself out of an AFL game because of two head knocks suffered the game before.

She says Mayes still deals with the effects of concussions sustained during his AFL career, and he has to do nightly eye and neck exercises.

Mayes, who played 17 games for the Power after 101 at Brisbane, was delisted by Port Adelaide at the end of 2022.

Burton, who has two children with Mayes, said watching Aliir Aliir and Lachie Jones clash heads in the Showdown on Saturday night and then Aliir return to the game was difficult.

“I just felt a bit emotional after watching Aliir on the weekend because Sam has had a couple of concussions now and still gets ongoing symptoms from them,” she said.

Burton said Mayes had suffered head knocks in games and was returned to action while playing for Port Adelaide.

The first was in the 2019 SANFL semi final, in which Port defeated Glenelg by four-points.

“He was playing and he got a head knock and was taken off with the blood rule but was strapped up and sent straight back on the field,” she said.

“And then he was playing the game and was playing well but then felt ill enough to pull himself off and said, ‘I’ve had enough’.

“After the game I headed down to the rooms and he was getting his head stitched up and he was in good spirits, but was just repeating himself non-stop and I started to get really concerned that it was concussion.

Sam Mayes copped several head knocks playing for the Power. Picture: James Elsby/AFL Photos via Getty Images

“And then when we went home he was repeating himself all night constantly, every two minutes he would do the same pattern, go to the mirror, look at the scar.

“He would ask about the game, he had no recollection of the game. He didn’t even know that they had won and he just kept doing the same thing over and over.

“I was getting really concerned but had no idea of what to do.

“Eventually he came good, but looking back on that it was quite concerning.

“At the moment you think, ‘Oh, it was a concussion, it is footy’, but to be sent back on and keep playing you just keep thinking of what the long-term impacts are and it is scary.”

Burton said Mayes suffered two head knocks in an SANFL game two years later against West Adelaide.

“There was no test to say that, ‘Oh, you have concussion’, and he seemed pretty fine,” she said.

“The next day he had a black eye and we went away to Kangaroo Island for a few days and he was so dizzy. We had a five-month-old baby at the time and he said, ‘I’m too dizzy to rock him. I’m going to fall over’.

“So he must have had delayed concussion symptoms and that was quite concerning because he played the game out.”

Former Port Adelaide Player Sam Mayes with his partner Cassie Burton and their two children.

The Power had a bye the following week with its next game on the Thursday against Geelong.

Mayes was due to play after being originally selected by the Power, but had to rule himself out of the game.

The period between the SANFL game and the AFL game was 12 days, the minimum time under the AFL’s concussion protocols.

But Burton says Mayes shouldn’t have had to make the decision.

“He had been in and out of the side, so he really wanted to play and get in the game again,” she said.

“But he was like, ‘I don’t know if I should do it’, and I was like, ‘Make sure you are fine, you have been trying to so hard to get a game’.

“And he said, ‘No, I can’t’, so he pulled himself out, he just felt like he couldn’t play, which was really super disappointing for him because he had worked so hard.

“He went to the club doctor and said, ‘I just feel too dizzy’ and they did some scans and said your brain looks fine and sent him to a vestibular specialist who does your inner ear, and he ended up doing that and they referred him to a neck specialist and ever since then he has been doing treatment off his own bat, I guess.”

Sam Mayes played 17 games for Port Adelaide. Picture: Michael Klein

Burton said Mayes does eye and neck exercises every night because he still gets bouts of dizziness “here and there”, which have been linked to his concussions.

Mayes is still playing football in the SANFL for North Adelaide and Burton says it is hard to not think about the long-term impacts.

“For Sam I guess he just wanted to play, that’s what he does for a living, so he is going to keep playing,” she said.

“But for me watching on the sidelines and dealing with it after it was pretty scary and now I just keep thinking about the long-term effects.”

Port Adelaide, which has been in contact with Mayes since he left the club and in the last 24 hours, said it was unable to comment as the AFL’s investigation into Allir and Jones’ treatment continued.

Originally published as Partner of former Port Adelaide player Sam Mayes reveals concussion concerns