Sanderson: I told lies to doctors

ADELAIDE coach Brenton Sanderson has admitted to lying to club doctors to prolong his AFL career.

As the concussion debate heats up following dual Brownlow Medallist Greg Williams' revelations about memory loss and other mental health issues following years of concussions, Sanderson said he was knocked out eight times in a 20-year junior and senior career.

"And I was one of those players who lied to doctors and said to doctors that I was feeling good," said Sanderson, who in his first year as Crows coach had to deal with serious concussion issues with now-departed key forward Kurt Tippett.

Having had concussions as a player and walked the fine line with them as a coach, Sanderson now wants the AFL to take a "conservative" approach to them.

"I am fully behind making the correct decisions on player welfare," Sanderson said.

"We have to make sure we are not making our game any sort of extra health risk for people down the track.

"I watch closely what is happening in the (United) States with the research that's going on with NFL players and there's some horrible stories there of brain disease from players with continual head knocks.

"It's not my expertise and I probably shouldn't comment on it but I'd prefer to take a conservative approach to the concussion rule to make sure we get this right."

Sanderson, who celebrated his 39th birthday yesterday, said it was important decisions were taken out of the hands of the players concerned.

I'd prefer to take a conservative approach to the concussion rule to make sure we get this right

"As much as players tell lies to doctors there are processes in place now where we take it out of the players' hands," said Sanderson who played 209 AFL games for Adelaide, Collingwood and Geelong.

"There's a lot of computer testing that they do now and psycho-analysis stuff which is really good and we (AFL clubs) are certainly behind anything the AFL can do to make the game safer and make sure we don't put players out there who are under any extra risks."

He said he had not suffered any side-effects of his concussions.

"I think I'm okay," he said - but that his family were "obviously concerned" when he suffered repeated head knocks.

"When I had concussions people close to me warned me about going back out there," he said.

"But we are an unusual breed, footballers.

"It is a brutal game at times and we are exposed without any sort of protective headgear to knocks.

"But that's the game we play unfortunately and we love to compete and the mateship of going out there when you are injured.

"Hopefully we can change that mentality a bit too."

The AFL yesterday announced it would host a concussion conference, also involving the NRL, ARU and FFA, in Melbourne on March 20-21, to update the codes on the latest research.

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