Joel Selwood has been "a little bit off" this season, in his coach Chris Scott's assessment. But it's the nagging issue that keeps sending Geelong's captain off the ground that is challenging the Cats to plug the gap he leaves before it appears.

Selwood has been sent to the sidelines under the blood rule seven times in 2015; no statistics exist as to who holds the record for bleeding from the head at training, as the skipper did on Tuesday. Scott said medical staff are exploring ways of protecting a head that bears the extensive, easily opened scars of 22 such trips to the bench for emergency patch-up work in his career.

"It's a good question that our medical staff are trying to work through - he does bleed a lot," Scott said. "It doesn't help, having him off the field for decent periods of the game.

"We do laugh, but our medical staff are thinking of ways to be a little bit more proactive. Hopefully that doesn't mean he gets a prophylactic bandage before each game."

Yet perhaps pre-emptive bandaging - in the style favoured by rugby union players - or the sort of mass coverage helmet worn by rugby league star Johnathan Thurston is the next step. St Kilda legend Nathan Burke, who played in a helmet through all but the first five seasons of his 323-game career, thinks so.

"He's obviously susceptible to it," Burke said. "In the end it's a bit like, 'You know what mate, you might think you look stupid, and it might not be the fashionable thing to do, but if your team needs you to be out on the field and you're off getting plastered up, you've gotta get over it and do what's best for the team'."

Burke sought protection after an ultimatum from coach Ken Sheldon: "We can't keep playing you if you keep coming off with blurred vision." Selwood's issue isn't easily addressed - little can be done, for example, to protect against knocks to the nose - but Burke thinks the sort of helmet worn by Thurston, with its onus on stopping cuts and abrasions, is worth trying.

The star Queenslander has spoken of the protection the headgear affords him against cuts and nicks. "There have been a few times I would have been split open had I not been wearing it," Thurston said in 2009. "I wouldn't go on the field without it."

Burke admitted he felt a need to compensate for the stigma that surrounded helmets in AFL when he first wore one by going even harder at the ball, but attitudes have changed for the better. "And that's certainly not going to happen to Selwood - he'll never been seen as a soft player who didn't go in hard."

Scott linked the conversation to the topical issue of players being jaded by the stresses of the modern game, raised in Fairfax Media recently by AFLPA boss Paul Marsh. While conscious of the work-life balance conundrum, Scott said Selwood's situation highlighted an area of equal concern.

"If you remove that for a second, the physical toll on some of the great players ... I think the whole footy industry's united in the desire for those guys to play long careers, we'd like to see Joel Selwood play an extra couple of years than retire prematurely," Scott said.

"I agree with the sentiment that it should be a concern for us, we shouldn't just stick our head in the sand and say, ' He's a tough player, he's a hard worker, he'll be right, he'll push his way through it.' I think that's a little naive."

Meanwhile, the challenge is to maximise Selwood's opportunities to impact games simply by being out there.

"The Cats are on the brink of making the finals or missing out," Burke said. "You'd hate for him to be off the ground for the last 15 minutes because he's continually bleeding from a cut to his forehead."