‘It’s barbaric what they’ve done’: Cats slammed after injury reveal
Comments from Geelong champion Jeremy Cameron revealing the true extent of the arm injury he played through in 2026 have shocked Kane Cornes, who labelled the situation “barbaric” and called out the Cats for allowing him to play throughout the season.
The 33-year-old initially broke his arm during the 2025 grand final, but surgery to repair it proved complex and was not deemed successful.
Jeremy Cameron of the Cats played through significant pain in 2026. AFL Photos via Getty Images
Despite managing the injury across the season, Cameron still kicked 41 goals from 19 games.
But speaking to SEN on Tuesday, Cameron revealed his arm was “effectively broken the whole season”, adding “the plate was the only thing holding it in place”.
He revealed that plate started to come loose towards the end of the season, leaving his arm "wobbly".
Cameron said he made the call not to have follow-up surgery, fearing it would sideline him for the entire 2026 season.
“It’s one of those things where, if I were to get it fixed when I first found out, I would have missed the whole season,” the key forward said.
“That wasn’t something that I really wanted to do. I believed that I could help the team go deep into September, regardless of how it felt.
“It was unfortunate how it finished and unfortunate that I had to carry that, but that’s footy sometimes. Hopefully it’s all fixed now."
Cameron confirmed he has since had another procedure and is hoping 2027 is smooth sailing for the arm.
“This time around, we went a bit differently. I got a bone graft out of my hip, they put that in there around the break site, so that heals a bit better, but it can be a bit slower," he said.
“I’ve been taking it a bit easy, and I will for the next six weeks or so. I’ll get a bit of a review, and hopefully it’s all gone well.”
Cornes, who played 300 games for Port Adelaide, feels Geelong should have come over the top of Cameron and forced him to prioritise his own health and wellbeing, particularly given the extent of the injury.
“It doesn’t do anything for those that believe clubs will do anything to put the win before the player,” Cornes told SEN on Wednesday.
“This is pretty barbaric from Geelong, to put him in that position where he is playing with a broken arm.
“Listening to that, where he wants to protect it, he can’t fall on it, there’s only a plate keeping his arm together. Geelong has not put the player first here in this instance.
“There is more to it, I understand that, and Jeremy no doubt put his hand up to play. They weren’t forcing him out onto the ground against his will, but at some stage, as a club, you’ve got to put the player’s interest, health and mental wellbeing in front of wins and losses.
Cameron first suffered the injury on grand final day in 2025. Morgan Hancock/AFL Photos via Getty Images
“I don’t think Geelong could sit here and say that they’ve done that this year, now that we are fully across all the information from the horse’s mouth of what we’ve been through.
“We can watch it and judge it from the outside and say, ‘what are they doing, they are playing him on the wing, he’s clearly not right, they are playing him at half back’.
“I’m going, ‘why aren’t they playing a guy who has kicked over 700 goals in the forward line. What are you doing? If he is not playing there, why are they playing him?’.
“We can do all that, and we can judge them from the outside not having that information, but now we’ve got it. It’s barbaric, what they have done.”
The Cameron revelation comes just months after Geelong was fined $140,000 by the AFL for allowing defender Jake Kolodjashnij to sign a waiver in 2024 making him responsible for any future concussion injuries.
Once the waiver was discovered and removed from the contract, Kolodjashnij was pulled from Geelong’s VFL team, and he did not play again.
The defender retired at the end of the 2026 season, after fresh medical advice suggested he should hang up the boots.
