Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has conceded the club made a “big mistake” in its controversial handling of Aliir Aliir’s concussion last week but has pledged his full support for the club doctor.
Aliir and fellow defender Lachie Jones will both miss this week’s clash with Geelong after a sickening head clash last weekend left them both concussed.
But in “shambolic” scenes Port doctor Mark Fisher failed to administer a SCAT5 concussion test on Aliir, earning widespread condemnation and sparking a league investigation, including a “please explain” from the AFL.
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Aliir did undergo a SCAT5 test after the game, and had further testing that he passed, but both he and Jones entered the league’s concussion protocols to keep them sidelined for 12 days.
Speaking for the first time since Fisher’s mistake was made public, Hinkley said his club doctor had his full support during a “tough” week.
“Do we lack trust in Mark Fisher? No, that’s not the case at all,” Hinkley said on Thursday.
“He himself has said he got it wrong – I think we should be able to go, ‘You know what? He’s got a lot of runs on the board that we should look back – whether that be Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games or football’. He’s done a lot of good things in his profession that we should give him some respect for.
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“He’s got a lot of years of service – I think you’ve got to look at both incidents and there was one he made a conservative approach and that was on Lachie who passed a concussion test but still didn’t allow him to go back on the ground.
“His opinion at the time was that Aliir was fine.
“On reflection, he would have done the full test.
“I think it’s a big mistake … But no one sets out to make any mistake in whatever type of job we do – particularly as a doctor. He’s doing his absolute best and has done great service of this footy club for a long period of time.”
Earlier in the week, the club said Fisher conceded he should have done the test in the first instance.
And Hinkley backed Fisher’s judgement when it came to those calls.
“He looked at Aliir closely – he said he should have completed the whole test,” he said.
“But he made some judgements on concussion in his professional opinion that Aliir was OK. On his reflection, he says he could have done a bit more than that.
“He’s admitted to getting that one wrong – he hasn’t got many wrong on his journey.
“He’s pretty resilient, pretty strong, but I don’t doubt he’s had a pretty tough week … he’s strong enough to keep at it.”
Jones was subbed out of the match at halftime, but Aliir played on following the heavy collision and reported to training on Monday.
Fox Footy’s Jon Ralph said the Power were in “significant strife” as a result of the concussion controversy and would face “significant fines”.
“There’s a please explain, they’ll put some information back to the AFL. I think it’ll be fines rather than anything more significant like draft picks. But the AFL has to send to message,” he said.
“I look at the context of Richmond through the Covid era. They got $100,000 in their soft cap after a couple of Covid breaches. Covid was something that was really risking the credibility and future of the game – and this is another one. It may well be that it’ll be a $20,000 or $40,000 fine with the AFL coming out and saying ‘this is the future fine’.”
AFL 360 co-host Mark Robinson described the whole ordeal as “shambolic” for Hinkley, the players and the club.
“The doctor believed he was doing the right thing and that he cares for the players – all doctors do – but he made an error. It put Ken Hinkley in a position after the game when Ken says: ‘We’ve got absolute faith and we always have a duty of care’ – no, you didn’t have a duty of care Kenny, sorry. The club didn’t, the club doctor didn’t,” Robinson said.
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“When I was watching this and he went back on the ground, I thought: ‘Have I missed something here? He was knocked out, he can’t come back on … why are they doing this? Why are they compromising this man’s health to send him back out on the field?’
“This is the last thing the AFL needed was a situation like this
Fisher will travel with the team to Geelong for Saturday’s clash, with Port out to end a three-match losing streak and cement their top-two spot on the ladder.
-With NCA Newswire
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