AFL MEDICAL professionals loathe it when non-medical people critique their work.

Some get so incensed they verge on apoplexy.

So we make this observation with bated breath - some decisions made by AFL doctors during a football match seem to be influenced by the state of that game.

Rightly or wrongly, Collingwood has twice this year put back onto the field players who had already sustained damage, only for those players, Luke Ball and Scott Pendlebury, to later be diagnosed with serious problems.

Out of the weekend's round 15 matches, two clubs, Carlton and Essendon, were questioned over their handling of stricken players, respectively Kade Simpson and Kyle Reimers.

The hit on Simpson by Collingwood's Sharrod Wellingham was horrific, and left the Blue midfielder with a broken jaw and arm spasms.

It was shocking viewing made even more awful when Carlton medical staff walked him - some have described it as dragged - off the MCG.

No stretcher, no significant pause for assessment. Simply, a medico either side of the groggy Simpson, his arms draped around their necks, his legs unable to keep up.

Carlton's club doctor Ben Barresi is an experienced man, and the Blues have gone out of their way to state publicly he did everything right.

"He did what was considered to be best for the player," a Blues spokesman said.

But let's continue to assess the matter.

Simpson was walked, or dragged, to the boundary line. Someone among the Blues staff was thinking clearly enough to stop just before the boundary line, and ensure that Simpson was walked, or dragged, over to the official interchange lines.

Why? In such a state, Simpson was surely never under consideration to play any further part in this game anyway.

In the heat of the moment in an important game against a hated rival - and with a player, Shaun Hampson, already subbed out - might it have been because more consideration wanted to be given to Simpson's state?

Let's take a look at the observations at the time of the incident of the football media's two most expert medical commentators, doctors Rohan White and Peter Larkins.

Said White on Triple M when asked by Garry Lyon why Simpson wasn't stretchered off: "I can't answer that."

Said Larkins on 3AW: "He was totally unconscious, Kade Simpson, after that, he went into that reflex posture. They're walking, well they're walking him off, what do you call that Dwayne (Russell), they're dragging him off, he will not go back on, he will have a significant concussion episode out of this, well yeah, I don't know what to say Brian (Taylor), he can't walk."

Both White and Larkins, in commentary since, have backed Carlton's handling of Simpson, who did not return to the field.

Essendon has been asked by the AFL to detail the injury suffered by Reimers after a head clash with Saint Tom Simpkin.

Reimers returned to the field before spending the entire last quarter on the interchange bench. The Bombers were already dealing with injured players, including Michael Hurley, who was subbed out of the game with a hamstring complaint.

Essendon has said Reimers was not concussed.

The AFL, as it argues on many matters, says it is world leading in its dealings with concussion.

It has certainly sharpened its focus on the matter in recent years, particularly 2012, aware that any form of adherence to old school ways would be to potentially leave it wide open to the legal cases which will come as retired players seek compensation for off-field struggles.

Rest assured, those cases will come, as they have in the NFL, and also be rest assured, the AFL will vigorously fight that litigation.

Not sure anyone at headquarters, though, would dare argue that a concussed Simpson being dragged from the MCG in prime time was a good look.

Image is everything, sometimes.

Twitter: @barrettdamian