Jeremy Cameron has played out Geelong’s six-point AFL loss to Port Adelaide despite a heavy hit to the head during the last quarter.
There were concussion alarm bells ringing for Cameron when he acrobatically jumped across a pack in an attempt to take a miraculous mark and landed with a thud on the ground.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Jeremy Cameron plays on despite big hit to the head.
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His body hit the turf first but it didn’t stop his head from slinging into the ground next, in what was a whiplash-type motion.
Cameron lay still on the ground for a brief moment but quickly popped his head up and managed to get to his feet.
There were immediate concerns for Cameron’s head by the Channel 7 commentary team.
“As soon as you stay still on the ground for a couple of seconds, that’s a trigger (for the doctors to investigate),” Matthew Richardson said.
A club doctor immediately rushed out to the superstar forward, but he was adamant about staying out on the ground.
After the initial shock of the impact, Cameron showed no obvious signs of pain, disorientation or hindrance to his play.
“Definitely a whiplash effect from the ground with the attempted mark,” Brian Taylor said.
He was allowed to stay on the ground and looked totally alert throughout the final nine minutes of the game.
But Melbourne great Garry Lyon was at a loss to accept that ruling, saying the decision should have been taken out of Cameron’s hands and he should have been taken off.
“The player will always say ‘I’m right, I want to stay (on the ground)‘,” Lyon said after the game.
“I thought the point of this was, ‘No, no, we’ve got the screens here, we can see what it is, I know you think you’re right, but you’re coming off’.”
AFL reporter Jon Ralph agreed that “the optics were really poor” to have him play out the game without even an assessment.
“There are two levels of this concussion management: the HIA (head injury assessment), which is that test across five minutes, and then if the doctor believes that they need to take them off the ground, that is the SCAT6 and that would have ended his night, a 15-minute test,” Ralph said.
“I just think all of us would have felt so much more comfortable with Cameron leaving the ground, at least to have that HIA. His head thumped into the ground.”
Last year, the AFL slapped Port Adelaide with a $100,000 fine for breaching concussion protocols following a sickening head clash between teammates Aliir Aliir and Lachie Jones.
The two players were involved in a brutal collision during their Round 20 Showdown against Adelaide, forcing Jones to be subbed out with a migraine, while Aliir returned to the field without undergoing a SCAT6 concussion test.
Port Adelaide initially backed club doctor Mark Fisher’s handling of the incident in the aftermath of the game, but the following Monday placed both players in concussion protocols and admitted they made an error on match-day.
Half of the fine ($50,000) was included in Port Adelaide’s football department soft cap with the remainder to sit outside the cap unless the club commits a similar breach before the end of the AFL and AFLW seasons this year.