Port Adelaide champion Kane Cornes has revealed an ongoing battle with anxiety that contributed to his AFL retirement. The Channel 7 footy expert won four best and fairests and a premiership across his decorated 300 games for the Power before infamously retiring mid-way through the 2015 season to pursue a career in the fire brigade. Since then, the 43-year-old has become one of the strongest voices in the AFL media, a commentator and panelist for Seven and on radio.
On-field Success, Off-field Struggles
On the field, he was known as a running beast that strangled some of the game's best midfielders into the ground. Off the field, he was quietly struggling mentally. In his 2015 autobiography, Cornes reveals his famous father Graham — a South Australian footy legend — blames himself for his son's anxiousness after an incident with a babysitter who had fallen asleep while looking after him. Asked by Hamish McLachlan if he thought that was the genesis of his mental struggles, Cornes wasn't so sure.
“I don't know,” he said on Unfiltered. “I went through a really hard stage with that when we'd just won the premiership. I thought something was wrong with me in my head, so I was getting all the scans and stuff and going to the doctors. I'm like, 'Something's wrong with me. I'm not feeling right, something is wrong'.
Medical Scans Revealed Nothing Physical
“And Dr. Peter Barnes knows me really well; club doctors know you as well as anyone. And he said, 'Nah, I don't think so. It's nothing physical'. Anyway, so one day I said, 'Nah, Barnesy, something's wrong with me, something's in my head'. He said, 'Alright, no worries. We'll book you in: X-ray, CT scan, CAT scan, brain scan, everything, all in one day'. So all the results come back, they're fine. And Barnesy said, 'Told you there was nothing wrong with you physically, but there's something wrong with you mentally. So we've got to get on top of this'. And he was unbelievable. Like he was answering calls when I couldn't sleep.
“So we just went through a really difficult stage. Dad was a great support in that. I don't know why it happened. Dad points to that (the babysitting incident). I remember that; they went out and I was with the babysitter and the babysitter couldn't hear me and I couldn't get out of the room and I was screaming and it was a horrific moment. But I don't put that down to the anxiety that I've had later on.”
Still Dealing with Anxiety Today
Cornes admitted he still feels anxious now, explained he is “better at dealing with it”. “I'm just highly strung, worrier, you know, think the worst. So if that's anxiety, which it probably is — worrying about what's in the future. But I think a lot of people may have that,” he said.
McLachlan added: “But being an AFL player, where it's highly scrutinised and you're tagging a lot of your career, trying to stop the best player of the opposition. That's not the right career choice for someone who's anxious.”
Mental Side Ended His Career
Cornes said it was the mental side of the game that ultimately ended his career, not the physical. “I was great physically. I reckon I could have played three years ago, like at 40. So physically, it was never that,” he said. “But for me, I marvel at the mental strength of those that are playing for a long time because you have to be so mentally strong. And I mean mentally strong in that you forget what's happened. So you have a bad game, 'OK, forget that, I'll move on'. I couldn't. I was horrible if I played poorly. I didn't speak to people, even the ones that I loved, for a couple of days.
“I thought it reflected on me as a person if I played badly. So in the end, when I was ready to retire, it was nothing physically. I was fine. I was still winning the time trials and doing everything that I had and in as good a shape, never injured. But mentally, I just had enough and just the weight of expectation and pressure that I put on myself ended up, you know, getting me in the end.”
