The fact that the Blues forward has been cleared to play this week, despite such visible signs of a head injury, underscores a shocking inconsistency in the AFL’s concussion guidelines.
A week after AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon declared player safety was “priority No.1, 2 and 3″, the decision to allow the Carlton forward to play seems a glaring contradiction.
Coach Michael Voss defended the club’s handling of McKay, saying he went into the correct protocols but was cleared to keep playing. A Blues spokesperson confirmed McKay had since passed further tests. In 2022, the league stopped Adelaide AFLW captain Chelsea Randall from playing in the club’s semi-final clash with Collingwood. This decision came after AFL specialists reviewed footage and deemed she needed to enter concussion protocols, even though the club’s doctors had cleared her to play.Randall, who also missed the 2021 AFLW grand final due to concussion, was bemused at the ruling.
“He wasn’t actually concussed,” Crows assistant Scott Burns said at the time. “We didn’t take him out of the game because of concussion, but I think the AFL docs now can overrule or have their say. They were confident enough that there were concussion symptoms and they wanted him to have this week off.”
At the time, the league’s legal counsel Stephen Meade declared: “The AFL concussion protocols are some of the most stringent that exist in world sport, however they require strict and consistent adherence to protect the health and safety of our players.
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