Retired St Kilda defender Sean Dempster has told SEN Breakfast that it was upsetting that people questioned his character without knowing the facts behind his omission from the club’s Round 1 team.
The 33-year-old retired earlier this week after undergoing tests following a series of head knocks, however it was first reported that he was disillusioned about being left out of the Saints opening round team to play Melbourne.
Dempster said that the public criticism was something that he hadn’t had to deal with before, and it was hard to swallow.
“To have your character questioned, for me, was upsetting,” he said.
“It was kind of the first time that I was questioned as person and my character was questioned, so I found that difficult.
“Given that it was based on some untruths – so that was hard.”
The former Sydney premiership player was on the receiving end of a bump from Port Adelaide’s Nathan Krakouer in the opening JLT series game, that saw the Power forward suspended for the season opener, but then played the following week for Sandringham in a VFL trial – something he said he was happy to do.
“I suppose those two weeks following the JLT one game, I was concerned and worries about what was going to happen,” he said.
“I felt like after the first JLT game, I needed to get back on the horse as quickly as possible, and just get out there because I had this little bit of doubt and fear in the back of my mind.
“I was already starting to think that I can’t keep doing this given that I’ve got a young family, so I played the next two games and one of those was a VFL game, trying to get a feeling for where I was headed. There was definitely no problem with me going back in the VFL – I’ve played plenty of VFL games and lower level games over my career.”
Dempster conceded that the situation could have been handled differently, which would have prevented the speculation that followed, from occuring.
“I went and sat down with ‘Richo’ before Round 1 and outlined my concerns. The club were very supportive of where I was heading and they said, ‘look why don’t you have a couple of weeks off (and) go and get some independent testing and make up your mind. Don’t make a rash decision’,” he said.
“Irrespective of what the results show, I sort of came to a decision in my own mind that the risk was starting to become too great to take.
“…I think the way that we handled it probably wasn’t the best – it allowed for a lot of speculation.
“I suppose the club knew where I stood and what I’m like as a person, that they probably just tried to think that it wouldn’t gain any traction if they didn’t talk about it.
“But not talking about it caused more questions.”
The Gippsland Power junior, who joined St Kilda in in 2007 after 68 games with the Swans, said that he suffered four serious concussions throughout his 222-game career, that required him to be stretched from the field and that he was always aware that another head knock could have serious consequences down the track.