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SEN • May 14th, 2025 8:08 pm
Kane Cornes has spoken of his shock and outrage that none of the four umpires caught up in the Lachie Schultz concussion drama will be sanctioned or suspended.
For the second week in a row the AFL's process, communication and integrity have being called into question amid an umpiring circus surrounding the handling of Schultz collapsing on field in the Collingwood clash against Fremantle.
With many experts and players questioning why play was not stopped despite Schultz collapsing on field, the AFL was quick to respond with a statement claiming the umpires had not seen the incident.
Since the aforementioned statement was released by Laura Kane and the AFL, audio of the communication between the four on-field umpires has been made public. It completely contradicts the AFL's claims.
It is understood high level discussions are ongoing at AFL HQ however all four umpires in question have been listed to officiate this weekend.
“I did read that all four umpires involved in the Schultz concussion incident - Simon Meredith, Craig Fleer, Martin Rodger and Justin Power - have all been listed in Round 10 matches,” Cornes said on SEN Sportsday.
“In an era where the AFL is this strong on concussion and concussion-related issues, and they're prepared to suspend players for three weeks for what are essentially minor tackles that result in a concussion.
“We have four umpires who misled the AFL by saying that they didn't see the incident at the time. That is now proven to be factually incorrect, because we've got the audio.
“Then, subsequent to that, they have also said that they have no memory of the incident when they were questioned about this yesterday.
“They twice misled the AFL on this. I just cannot see a world in which they go unpunished and unsanctioned for those two major errors.
“Now, if they had just said, ‘Look, we saw the incident, we felt like play was on the other side, and it wasn’t going to go through the middle of the ground. By the time we thought about stopping play, Lachie Schultz had already been removed from the ground’.
“If they said that, this is a non-story. But the fact they’ve misled the AFL twice, I can’t believe they have not been sanctioned for this issue when the AFL is so hard on the players.
"I find this incredibly difficult to digest.”
The umpires can be heard very clearly acknowledging that there was an injured player, so why did the AFL statement claim the contrary?
It has opened yet another embarrassing mishandling of a situation by the AFL just one week after it was humiliated in the handling of the Willie Rioli threatening behaviour incidents.
While many have said that the buck stops with Laura Kane, Cornes said there are others involved that need to be held accountable.
“Andrew Dillon needs to come over the top and say, ‘I'll be doing a full investigation into this, because we can't have anarchy in the umpires department’," Cornes said.
“We can't have the umpires feeling that they're not being supported. We can't have the umpire saying one thing and actually meaning another.
“Some accountability will be good. ‘We stuffed up’, somebody has to say those words.
“Laura did in the statement that she released, she said that responsibility this falls on me, so she has essentially taken full responsibility for this. But in essence, in explaining what has gone on, she has confirmed that the umpires firstly misled the AFL not once, but twice.
“She’s a long way from it. There are layers between those four men and Laura and she needs to articulate how the layers interacted in this whole process.”
