St Kilda had a pair of worrisome moments during their win over the Western Bulldogs yesterday with duo Paddy McCartin and Dylan Roberton both having health scares.
McCartin has had a long history of concussion issues and was taken from the ground after copping a hit, while Roberton, who collapsed mid-game last year and sat out the season with a heart scare felt ‘off’ after the game.
Saints assistant coach Brett Ratten said that the McCartin knock was nothing to be too concerned about.
“With his history it was more of a conservative approach. He got the knock to the head,” Ratten told SEN Breakfast.
“If there’s four points on the line, it might be a little bit different, but there wasn’t so we just took all of the risk out of it and took Paddy off the ground and let the doctors assess him.
“I suppose the next couple of days will sort of tell us the story with Paddy, how bad it was and is he right for Round 1, but I think the doctors were just going the conservative approach.”
As for Roberton, Ratten also he believes he’s doing fine.
“It was sort of right at the end he felt a bit off,” Ratten said.
“By the time I got down to the rooms he was having a laugh with the players.
“There’ll be some more testing done on that, but it’s a bit like Paddy, he had a history in that space and we want to make sure he’s right and everything’s fine, but he seemed in a pretty good space at the end of the game.
“Obviously when you’ve got something like that you’ve got to do a few more tests, but it looked fine when I left.
“The doctor just came in to make sure everyone knew he was okay.”
St Kilda defeated the Western Bulldogs by 14 points in yesterday’s JLT Series game and they’ll play the Gold Coast at Marvel Stadium in Round 1.
