A concerning episode involving Western Bulldogs midfielder Tom Liberatore played out in the dying minutes of his side’s loss to Essendon at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.
The AFL clearance machine inexplicably fell to the ground without any immediate contact from anyone, more than 50 metres off the ball, with less than three minutes to go in the game.
Channel 7 commentator Brian Taylor was quickly onto it.
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“Gee, Liberatore’s had a delayed reaction in the middle of the ground. He’s fallen over for absolutely no reason,” he said.
“That was bizarre! I was watching it.”
Essendon midfielder Darcy Parish was the first on-field to notice his opponent had gone down, apropos of nothing.
He helped Liberatore back up and had to hold him up to make sure he didn’t fall back down.
“The Essendon players have helped him to his feet. Parish is concerned about him,” Taylor went on.
“But he just collapsed in the middle of the ground — he was just walking along. And he does not look all that comfortable at the moment.”
Concerningly, a dazed and confused Liberatore tried to play on and was not spotted by Bulldogs doctors while he staggered back to his feet.
He managed to get his legs back under him and run again, even finding the ball once more to register an inside 50.
“I don’t think the Bulldog doctors have seen that,” Taylor said.
“Parish was first to his aid, he went and picked him up, because he saw him collapse for no reason. Absolutely no reason at all.”
Abbey Holmes from the boundary line was watchin the Bulldogs’ medical staff, who didn’t appear to react at all.
“I still don’t think that the doctors have noticed that that happened,” she said after about a minute since the incident had occurred.
“I’ve got a very close eye on them at the moment and there’s certainly no movement down here.”
Taylor added: “No, I don’t think they have any idea that that has happened. It did look like some sort of delayed reaction to whatever came in the moments before.”
More to come …
