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Peculiarly though, neither the club or the AFL have definitively said when Stewart entered the mandatory 12-day concussion protocols, leaving his availability for Thursday night\u2019s blockbuster with Fremantle still up in the air after missing Round 15 against Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Midweek Tackle, Fox Footy reporter Jon Ralph said while he could understand ongoing niggles for some players not being mentioned in their weekly injury report, it was far less sensical in the case of concussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI completely understand why they would gild the lily with things like Jeremy Cameron. I\u2019ve reported about that extensively the last couple weeks,\u201d Ralph said on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think concussion is a very different case (though). I\u2019m sure that they\u2019re not pushing the envelope in regards to Tom Stewart. But we\u2019ve done so much there in the community to promote the awareness around head knocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he in the 12-day concussion protocol? When did it start? I just don\u2019t think we need to be having any subterfuge around head knocks \u2014 the privacy stuff doesn\u2019t wash. It\u2019s not private, these clubs have been mandated to do it. <\/p>\n
Stewart in doubt for big clash with Freo | 01:48<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should be really precise about when Tom Stewart was initially concussed, and when is his first possible chance to come back and potentially play against Fremantle \u2014 which right now we think is doubtful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Midweek Tackle panellist Corbin Middlemas added: \u201cWe\u2019re sitting here where, if he did enter the 12-day mandatory concussion protocols … he would just be about coming out of those, and be eligible to play this week,\u201d Middlemas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still don\u2019t know as an industry as to when he entered, and when he possibly came out. It feels like Geelong has done their very best to avoid the answer to that question.\u201d<\/p>\n
The murkiness around Stewart\u2019s availability comes amid the club\u2019s omission of young ruck Mitch Edwards from its injury list on Tuesday evening, despite multiple reports the 21-year-old underwent surgery on Monday to combat an infection.<\/p>\n
According to the AFL website, the Cats have three players listed as \u2018TBC\u2019 for Round 16, while another remains \u2018indefinite\u2019 with a knee injury.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time Geelong has come under scrutiny for its publishing of injury lists, with Middlemas highlighting each club\u2019s obligation under the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to be reasonably transparent.<\/p>\n
‘Give us (coaches) a break now and then! | 03:08<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the CBA, Article 2.7 \u2014 Injury Updates, classified as Point A: \u2018Clubs must ensure that all medical information is credible, responsible and specific in terms of its meaningful contribution towards the teams, the media and its fans,\u201d Middlemas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn 2.7C, it goes on to say they \u201cmust update that as soon as reasonably practical to do so\u201d, which I don\u2019t think Geelong has done for a period of time. I asked chief executive Steve Hocking on radio about this the other day, and he said he hasn\u2019t had any communication from the AFL as to the way that they handle such things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI almost feel like that\u2019s where it gets handed over (and) becomes less of a Geelong issue … it becomes an AFL thing. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf the AFL are happy for Geelong to handle it that way, I\u2019d imagine there\u2019s 17 other clubs in the competition that are thinking: \u2018Why are we being so transparent about our injuries … if there\u2019s not going to be any kind of pressure enforced by headquarters to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stewart\u2019s unfortunate concussion against Adelaide is his second inside nine months, after being knocked out in last year\u2019s preliminary final win against Hawthorn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Questions regarding Geelong\u2019s vagueness on the concussion timeline of star defender Tom Stewart have intensified, with calls for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-740969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}