'It was hell': Ex AFL star Koby Stevens reveals shocking toll dozens of concussions took on him

Former AFL player Koby Stevens has spoken in-depth about the "hell" he went through across his career, as he battled the effects of more than a dozen concussions.

Stevens played 91 career games, 11 for West Coast after being taken with pick 23 in the 2009 draft, 63 then for the Western Bulldogs before a final 17 at St Kilda.

He retired in 2018 due to ongoing concussion symptoms, becoming one of the first players to do so.

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Speaking on the Howie Games podcast, Stevens documented a career haunted by concussions from start to finish.

In his debut game for the Eagles in 2010, he was knocked out cold against the Bulldogs, but returned to the field and played out the game - something that was commonplace then, but shocking now.

"Round 10, first five minutes, ran on, put my head over the footy, got kneed in the head by Jarrod Harbrow, and I was out cold in the first five minutes," Stevens said.

"My parents are up in the stands and everything and I came off and remember saying to the doctor 'I haven't touched the footy I'm going back out there'.

"I remember standing in the middle at Subiaco and the Bulldogs ruckman was staring at me and I couldn't see anything and he was screaming 'what the f--- are you doing back out here?'. That's all I remember from the game.

"There's a moment where I took a mark and I actually went the wrong way. You can watch it. You can hear the umpire whistling like four times and everyone was laughing at me, but I was pretty bad. I didn't play the next week."

Even early in his AFL journey, Stevens was battling chronic concussion symptoms, but kept them quiet across his career, thinking little of injuries you couldn't truly see.

"There was a period at West Coast where I had chronic headaches for a couple of months where they knew about it and were trying to get on top of it," he said.

"Just in the back of your head and wouldn't go away. They were constant. Wouldn't go away.

"My whole career I didn't think about (the ramifications of the concussions). It wasn't in my thought process. I just didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

"It wasn't until the last couple of years of my career where I look back now and can see some of the symptoms I had and it was balance issues, I was getting pushed off the ball pretty easily in that last year because I had like three (concussions) over pre-season.

"I didn't think anything of it. I remember (St Kilda coach Alan Richardson) spraying me, like 'why are you falling over so much?'.

"Those early (concussions), I wasn't too bad. Just headaches and a bit of blurred vision and that sort of stuff," Stevens added.

"Over my career I had about 15 big (concussions) and a lot of smaller ones which I think were my problem, but the bigger ones I had a fair few.

"It wasn't until the last one where everything went wrong."

That final concussion came against Brisbane in 2018 in round one of the season. Stevens admits he can't quite remember how it happened, but says the symptoms from it changed his life.

"The last one was the one that ended it all. It wasn't even that big. I got kneed in the head or it was a head clash maybe. I remember Mitch Robinson looking at me and he goes 'you all good?'; and I had blacked out for maybe 10 seconds or whatever," Stevens said.

"It was towards the end of the game and I just ran around and was sweet, but I was feeling really crook after the game. Sick in the stomach, blurred vision and stuff.

"The doctors came out afterwards and did their medical checks after the game and I just said I'm fine. I was out of contract again. What I was thinking 'I can't say much about this, I want to negotiate a new deal'.

"And then that night I had blurred vision and was throwing my guts up all night. It was not good. Then that really bad anxiety. It was like a train hit me. It was like something was flicked on in an instant. That lasted for the next two years.

"I didn't say anything. I played the next week. I didn't tell anyone. I struggled to get into the club the full week. I was struggling to get up the stairs and just kind of fought it. I just said I was sick and didn't train most of the week.

"Played against North the next week and had blurred vision pretty much the whole game. I was so bad. I couldn't make decisions, I was dropping marks, bad kicks, and all this sort of stuff.

"It was one of the most vulnerable times of my career that I've ever felt that scared on the field. Like I was either going to get hurt or someone was going to smash me again or I was just making mistakes the whole day.

"Got home that night and I was just gone, mate. Blurred vision, so sensitive to light and noise and all that sort of stuff and it got to Monday and I had to say something.

"I walked into the doctor's office and said 'I'm not right'."

Stevens believes concussion research has come a long way since 2018, saying neurologists struggled to help him when he first started seeing them.

"No one knew what was going on back then (in 2018). No one. Even the neurologists I was seeing I reckon didn't have a clue. They were saying I was going to be fine and that most symptoms would subside," he said.

"But my symptoms weren't. They were getting worse. I couldn't even get out of bed. I passed out a few times that week.

"In the end I got diagnosed with POTS syndrome. The part of my brain that was injured was effecting my heart rate. Every time I stood up my blood pressure and my heart rate would go from 40BPM to 130 as soon as I stood up. It was scary.

"On top of that, the blurred vision, I was slurring words, I was just sick all the time. I felt so sick in the guts.

"I couldn't sleep. I had insomnia and was having vivid nightmares, every night. I just couldn't sleep. It felt like I was awake. Vivid nightmares about everything. Really scary, dark shit.

"It was like that last concussion flicked on a light bulb and it was hell."

Stevens filmed a documentary about his post-career journey of trying to heal his brain, with Australian actor and St Kilda fan Eric Bana involved in producing and narrating it.

However, the footage, which cost him over $1m to produce, was stolen from his car in 2025.