AFL veteran Tom Liberatore 'just collapsed' in bizarre moment ...

A concerning episode involving Western Bulldogs midfielder Tom Liberatore played out in the dying minutes of his side’s loss to Essendon at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.

The AFL clearance machine inexplicably fell to the ground without any immediate contact from anyone, more than 50 metres off the ball, with less than three minutes to go in the game.

Channel 7 commentator Brian Taylor was quickly onto it.

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“Gee, Liberatore’s had a delayed reaction in the middle of the ground. He’s fallen over for absolutely no reason,” he said.

“That was bizarre! I was watching it.”

Essendon midfielder Darcy Parish was the first on-field to notice his opponent had gone down, apropos of nothing.

He helped Liberatore back up and had to hold him up to make sure he didn’t fall back down.

“The Essendon players have helped him to his feet. Parish is concerned about him,” Taylor went on.

“But he just collapsed in the middle of the ground — he was just walking along. And he does not look all that comfortable at the moment.”

Speaking on radio after the game, Liberatore assured fans it was just an ankle complaint he was dealing with.

“Everything is good, I sorta came up and lost balance of my ankle,” the 31-year-old said.

“I tweaked my ankle just at the start of the last quarter. So you know, I relayed when I got up I fell back down.

“I’m all fine, no symptoms and full recollection.”

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Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said the experienced midfielder had been checked for concussion and cleared of any issues.

“For some reason he lost his footing and stumbled, but he’s fine,” Beveridge said.

“He’s been looked after and there’s no concussion or anything like that.

“We were coming in (to the changeroom) just making sure he’s ok and he’s apparently fine.”

It raised serious concern at the time, though, as the dazed and confused Liberatore tried to play on and appeared not to be spotted by Bulldogs doctors while he staggered back to his feet.

He managed to get his legs back under him and run again, even finding the ball once more to register an inside 50.

“I don’t think the Bulldog doctors have seen that,” Taylor said.

“Parish was first to his aid, he went and picked him up, because he saw him collapse for no reason. Absolutely no reason at all.”

Abbey Holmes from the boundary line was watching the Bulldogs’ medical staff, who didn’t appear to react at all.

“I still don’t think that the doctors have noticed that that happened,” she said about a minute after the incident had occurred.

“I’ve got a very close eye on them at the moment and there’s certainly no movement down here.”

Taylor added: “No, I don’t think they have any idea that that has happened. It did look like some sort of delayed reaction to whatever came in the moments before.”

Minutes before Liberatore went down, he had copped a crushing tackle from former teammate Jake Stringer and stayed down for an extended moment to catch his breath.

The tackle didn’t seem to inflict any damage on his ankle, so it’s unclear whether the two incidents were related.