Gerard Whateley’s take on Petracca incident

Apologies if this has been posted previously, but quite a damning article by Gerard Whateley on the duty of care that appeared to be absent last Monday. According to him, Collingwood players (Moore and Crisp) were concerned enough to ask Christian if he should be on the field.

If true, this is a shocking indictment on our club and certainly does not help with the litany of other stuff that has been swirling about recently. I’m beginning to wonder if our fitness program/ethos, whereby you build resilience by playing through injury has started to take its toll. It feels as though the players are being told that their mental and physical well-being comes before everything, yet clearly several of them are banged up. I wonder if this is creating disillusionment within the playing group?

Gerard needs to move on. I’ve heard they did all the assessments and he passed so went back out. He then went downhill after this and so the call was made. The Drs can only work off symptoms, they don’t have a crystal ball that tells them exactly what’s wrong.

Let’s not forget they would’ve done the exact same assessment for Steven May against the hawks and he would’ve failed, so was removed immediately.

Edited June 14, 2024Jun 14 by DistrACTION Jackson

Oh good, Gerald feels there's enough of a pile on that it's safe for him to jump in too. It is Melbourne after all, not a big club, so he won't get blowback from AFL HQ. Does he really want to bring out the "duty of care" card when this was absent from several incidents of which we've been on the receiving end in recent years? Kicking in danger breaking players hands, low pushes in back tearing players hamstrings, feigning smothers to end a player's career?

It's not like in this case a player just waved a doctor away after an obvious head clash, or a club ignored footage of a head clash and didn't follow up with a concussion test, or one of many other instances we've seen of a club's failure to exercise duty of care.  We have doctors assessing likely broken ribs and acting accordingly as per the symptoms, including ultimately subbing Trac and sending him to hospital well before the game was over.

Gerard I know everything Whateley, the king of righteousness. I can't stand the little twirp.

Is there a duty of care not to slam your knee into someone’s ribs ? - asking for a friend 

Did he also write an article when Cameron played with a concussion? He wouldn’t dare attack his beloved Cats.

He’s got a point though.. Injuries were comparable to a car crash & life threatening. I genuinely think this was mishandled by Melb doctors. I felt sick to the stomach seeing him out there. It’s not about going on a witch hunt to torch the dees. It’s about setting higher standards & protocols across the AFL so these situations don’t happen again.

Someone explained that broken ribs become severely sharp bones within the body & can damage internal organs.. The ruptured spleen & punctured lung may have happened after going back on. So thankful Trac didn’t die. 

At the risk of offering a contrary view I agree with his comments. He not saying it was the wrong decision but rather requires an open and transparent explanation of the steps taken to determine Trac health. For one did the medicos check the vision of the incident. Any view of that tape would have made the risk of rib injuries pretty obvious. By extension if it a rib injury and you can’t see it logic would require a deeper scan to be undertaken. As stated by Eddie Maguire a basic CT machine would cost $80k and take the guess work out of this. A small price to pay for certainty rather than educated guess work. Why doesn’t a ground like the MCG have one? The fact that Pies players were questioning Trac and not tackling further undermines the claims there nothing to see here. I don’t see this as a Dees issue but whole of AFL issue.

1 minute ago, Die Hard Demon said:

He’s got a point though.. Injuries were comparable to a car crash & life threatening. I genuinely think this was mishandled by Melb doctors. I felt sick to the stomach seeing him out there. It’s not about going on a witch hunt to torch the dees. It’s about setting higher standards & protocols across the AFL so these situations don’t happen again.

Someone explained that broken ribs become severely sharp bones within the body & can damage internal organs.. The ruptured spleen & punctured lung may have happened after going back on. So thankful Trac didn’t die. 

Are you a doctor or a risk management specialist?

Then your opinion on whether you think it was handled correctly or not is probably irrelevant, because you don't have the expertise to make that assessment.

The doctors did the assessment. Petracca passed at first, and subsequently failed and the doctors withdrew him.

The process our club doctors followed was review by the AFL medical team and ticked off as the appropriate process.

Anything else is people with no actual knowledge making judgement calls on what they saw fro. The stands, and not relevant.

Just now, deanox said:

Are you a doctor or a risk management specialist?

Then your opinion on whether you think it was handled correctly or not is probably irrelevant, because you don't have the expertise to make that assessment.

The doctors did the assessment. Petracca passed at first, and subsequently failed and the doctors withdrew him.

The process our club doctors followed was review by the AFL medical team and ticked off as the appropriate process.

Anything else is people with no actual knowledge making judgement calls on what they saw fro. The stands, and not relevant.

Dr’s used to send players back on with concussions back in the days. It’s about learning & getting better. 

2 minutes ago, Deesprate said:

At the risk of offering a contrary view I agree with his comments. He not saying it was the wrong decision but rather requires an open and transparent explanation of the steps taken to determine Trac health. For one did the medicos check the vision of the incident. Any view of that tape would have made the risk of rib injuries pretty obvious. By extension if it a rib injury and you can’t see it logic would require a deeper scan to be undertaken. As stated by Eddie Maguire a basic CT machine would cost $80k and take the guess work out of this. A small price to pay for certainty rather than educated guess work. Why doesn’t a ground like the MCG have one? The fact that Pies players were questioning Trac and not tackling further undermines the claims there nothing to see here. I don’t see this as a Dees issue but whole of AFL issue.

The club and doctors don't need to provide a public explanation of the medical risk management procedures they followed (which is what you are I playing when you say open and transparent ). The public wouldn't understand those procedures anyway.

The club doctors have been open and transparent with the only people who have the expertise and authority to review them - the AFL medical team. And they ticked off the club doctors approach.

That should be story over. Asking for risk management proceuto be public laid out so a lay person who doesn't understand them can critique them isn't helpful.

2 minutes ago, Die Hard Demon said:

Dr’s used to send players back on with concussions back in the days. It’s about learning & getting better. 

Yeah they did and they have learnt and got better. And they will keep learning.

But a general supporter in the stands with no medical knowledge is not going to be able to make improvements on the doctors processes or assess whether the right thing happened. The medical community will do that as a profession. Not everyone needs to have a say on everything, especially when the topic is so specialist, and has already been signed off by independent medical review.

1 hour ago, gs77 said:

Oh good, Gerald feels there's enough of a pile on that it's safe for him to jump in too. It is Melbourne after all, not a big club, so he won't get blowback from AFL HQ. Does he really want to bring out the "duty of care" card when this was absent from several incidents of which we've been on the receiving end in recent years? Kicking in danger breaking players hands, low pushes in back tearing players hamstrings, feigning smothers to end a player's career?

It's not like in this case a player just waved a doctor away after an obvious head clash, or a club ignored footage of a head clash and didn't follow up with a concussion test, or one of many other instances we've seen of a club's failure to exercise duty of care.  We have doctors assessing likely broken ribs and acting accordingly as per the symptoms, including ultimately subbing Trac and sending him to hospital well before the game was over.

It's all "AFL" sanctioned violence.  it gets patrons through the turnstiles, and pays the bills.

20 minutes ago, Sydee said:

Is there a duty of care not to slam your knee into someone’s ribs ? - asking for a friend 

That's the real issue here, in my view. It seems 'The Speccie' is held sacrosanct in Aussie Rules folklore, and the inevitable consequence of allowing players to jump into packs, onto players' backs with their knees up. It is and always has been and always will be an act which can inflict very serious consequences. 

There are those who reduce it to the copout line - 'It's part of the game'. Well shirtfronts and sling tackles etc were also part of the game until the AFL/VFL faced the fact that they were bloody dangerous. Only troglodytes want to maintain aspects of a game which can potentially kill you.

12 minutes ago, Monbon said:

That's the real issue here, in my view. It seems 'The Speccie' is held sacrosanct in Aussie Rules folklore, and the inevitable consequence of allowing players to jump into packs, onto players' backs with their knees up. It is and always has been and always will be an act which can inflict very serious consequences. 

There are those who reduce it to the copout line - 'It's part of the game'. Well shirtfronts and sling tackles etc were also part of the game until the AFL/VFL faced the fact that they were bloody dangerous. Only troglodytes want to maintain aspects of a game which can potentially kill you.

It's a fine line because we do need to allow people to contest the mark, and it is difficult to judge whether an incident like this is accidental/incidental contact or if raising the knee is intended to have a physical impact (not suggesting injury intended, just meaning bump with the point of the knee to disrupt the opposition players mark).

One thing I'd note is that Moore went up one fist just to spoil. So the knee in the back wasn't part of taking the mark just part of disrupting Petracca's attempt.

If we moved this rule anywhere I'd consider taking spoiling attempts out of the "contesting the mark" definition, and placing them in the "unrealistic attemp" basket. So yes you can attempt to spoil, but you don't get the same protections from in the back etc as if you were attempting to mark.

Difficult to police but it might stop players using physical collision body on body as the means of spoiling.

All these no-knowledge nuffies having a skwark at the club.  Pile on ladies and gents!

 

And then the thugs are supposed to be heroes for some ‘duty of care’ bs?  Just saying, if you wanted to demonstrate duty of care, don’t go smashing into an unprotected player with your knee.

Sheesh!

Can we just take the L on this and move on? Arguing the point or ruminating on the detail is rather pointless. 

We screwed up, take the licks, get better, and move on.

Why does anyone give a FF what Whateley or any other mouth for hire thinks about our club?

How nice of Darcy Moore to take an interest in Trac’s welfare! Would have been more useful to do it 15 mins earlier. 

Gerard's sentiments are valid, but his failure to apply any responsibility on the individual is so typical of the modern journalist. Petracca shares some significant responsibility here, and his motivations would be interesting to know. It would reveal a lot about him and AFL culture.

Why did he choose to play on? Did he want to prove himself? Did he want to win the game off his own boot? Did he fear looking like he was soft? Was he simply trusting the medicos to pull him out of the game if they felt he was unfit to play?

1 hour ago, deanox said:

It's a fine line because we do need to allow people to contest the mark, and it is difficult to judge whether an incident like this is accidental/incidental contact or if raising the knee is intended to have a physical impact (not suggesting injury intended, just meaning bump with the point of the knee to disrupt the opposition players mark).

One thing I'd note is that Moore went up one fist just to spoil. So the knee in the back wasn't part of taking the mark just part of disrupting Petracca's attempt.

If we moved this rule anywhere I'd consider taking spoiling attempts out of the "contesting the mark" definition, and placing them in the "unrealistic attemp" basket. So yes you can attempt to spoil, but you don't get the same protections from in the back etc as if you were attempting to mark.

Difficult to police but it might stop players using physical collision body on body as the means of spoiling.

Contest the mark, fly for a mark, by all means. Why stick your knee into somebody's back or head?

1 hour ago, deanox said:

The club and doctors don't need to provide a public explanation of the medical risk management procedures they followed (which is what you are I playing when you say open and transparent ). The public wouldn't understand those procedures anyway.

The club doctors have been open and transparent with the only people who have the expertise and authority to review them - the AFL medical team. And they ticked off the club doctors approach.

That should be story over. Asking for risk management proceuto be public laid out so a lay person who doesn't understand them can critique them isn't helpful.

With respect we have concussion protocols that are well established and to be followed. You don’t have to be a medical expert to confirm established protocols for treating concussion were followed. It a reasonable question where concussion occurs to ask were the protocols followed. There have been enough serious rib related injuries to warrant established protocols to be established and followed. Whilst doctors do their best they are fallible to just accept their decisions without question put them at different level of all other professions in the community. I would hardly call the AFL ticking it off independent. The court are full of medico legal cases where medical professionals get it wrong. If the AFL in future dont put protocols in place they may well be liable based on the current known risk of this issue. Indeed it not beyond belief that Petracca himself may well legally question the decision made that put him back on the ground. In those circumstances the court would demand full transparency of what occurred.

11 minutes ago, Deesprate said:

With respect we have concussion protocols that are well established and to be followed. You don’t have to be a medical expert to confirm established protocols for treating concussion were followed. It a reasonable question where concussion occurs to ask were the protocols followed. There have been enough serious rib related injuries to warrant established protocols to be established and followed. Whilst doctors do their best they are fallible to just accept their decisions without question put them at different level of all other professions in the community. I would hardly call the AFL ticking it off independent. The court are full of medico legal cases where medical professionals get it wrong. If the AFL in future dont put protocols in place they may well be liable based on the current known risk of this issue. Indeed it not beyond belief that Petracca himself may well legally question the decision made that put him back on the ground. In those circumstances the court would demand full transparency of what occurred.

There would be protocols in place for everything, we just wouldn’t know them because it isn’t as common as concussion and not as a big an issue due to the legal case against the afl

2 hours ago, Deesprate said:

At the risk of offering a contrary view I agree with his comments. He not saying it was the wrong decision but rather requires an open and transparent explanation of the steps taken to determine Trac health. For one did the medicos check the vision of the incident. Any view of that tape would have made the risk of rib injuries pretty obvious. By extension if it a rib injury and you can’t see it logic would require a deeper scan to be undertaken. As stated by Eddie Maguire a basic CT machine would cost $80k and take the guess work out of this. A small price to pay for certainty rather than educated guess work. Why doesn’t a ground like the MCG have one? The fact that Pies players were questioning Trac and not tackling further undermines the claims there nothing to see here. I don’t see this as a Dees issue but whole of AFL issue.

Yes let's install a whole emergency department at all the grounds fully staffed and equipped.

The dr makes the call and should be allowed to proceed without hindrance so if the ct scan is clear that's ok how long to take a scan?

It's a nonsense drs should err on the conservative side

Gerard loves when there’s a high horse he can climb on. No one owes him an explanation, the AFL has reviewed it and found no issues, Trac and his family need to be satisfied he’s been looked after and everyone else can GAGF. 

Talk of installing a CT scanner at the G is rubbish, the epworth is literally across the road. Half a mil plus for a machine, plus operators, plus software, plus to have a CT they need to inject contrast dye and so forth - if a scan is needed get them to hospital which is what happened.