Source :- THE AGE NEWS
For much of my football journey, there was a culture where toughness was often measured by your ability to stay on the field.
Many of us also grew up watching our football heroes bounce back to their feet after huge collisions, even when they were visibly rattled. That’s what we admired. That’s what we thought toughness looked like.
Not every player felt this way, but for many of us there was a belief that if you could get through after a head knock, you did. You didn’t want to let your teammates down, and concussion wasn’t viewed much differently to any other injury.
The tragic death of Nathan Fitzgerald over the weekend has been a sombre reminder of just how important conversations around head knocks and brain health have become in football.
While every situation is different, moments like this remind us that protecting the brain matters at every level of our game – from the AFL and AFLW through to local and community football.
I’ve now been in the AFLW system for 11 seasons, and I played elite sport for many years before that. Looking back, we simply didn’t know what we know now about concussion. The conversation was different. The understanding was different. And because of that, the culture was different.
If you copped a knock to the head, your first instinct often wasn’t, “I need to get checked.”
It was, “I’ll be right.”
For many players, staying on the ground was almost worn as a badge of honour. Toughness meant playing through pain. There was a degree of naivety around concussion. Some treated it like a corky or a rolled ankle – something you could simply grit your teeth through.
Some footballers even discussed making sure your pre-season baseline concussion testing wasn’t their absolute best, just in case they ever needed a buffer later in the year. Whether people acted on those conversations or not, the fact they existed says something about the mindset at the time.
There was also, for some players, a reluctance to come from the ground or to fully disclose how they were feeling because nobody wanted to miss football. We saw the protocols as something that might stop us playing the game we loved.
The biggest shift over the past five years hasn’t simply been the rules – it’s been the culture. The rules didn’t change the culture on their own – but they’ve helped create it.
Players have helped lead that change, but so has the AFL through ongoing research, education and continually strengthening its concussion protocols. Every season the AFL brings concussion experts to speak to us about what we know, what we still don’t know, and why brain injuries must be treated differently to any other injury. The message is simple: concussion deserves enormous caution and respect.
That commitment to protecting players continues to evolve. From 2027, both the AFL and AFLW will introduce restrictions on contact training to reduce players’ exposure to head knocks. The focus is no longer just on responding to concussion – it’s on preventing it wherever possible.
It’s also changed the way we play the game. Football is fast and split-second decisions won’t always be perfect, but players now carry a much greater sense of responsibility for protecting their opponents’ heads. We still compete fiercely, but we recognise that protecting another player’s long-term health is part of respecting the game and each other.
While we’ve learned a great deal about concussion, there is still so much we don’t know about its long-term effects. That uncertainty alone is reason enough to take every head knock seriously.
I’ve only had one diagnosed concussion in my career, after being caught in a sling tackle that ended my day. What stayed with me wasn’t the tackle itself – it was what happened afterwards. I couldn’t remember the next four to six hours, including completing the SCAT assessment with our doctor. Looking back, that’s a confronting thing to say out loud.
At the time, the return-to-play protocol was seven days, so my focus was on getting back on the field the following week, which I did. Today, my goal would simply be making sure my brain had fully recovered, however long that took.
Years ago, after a heavy collision, the conversation in your own head might have been: “Am I OK? Am I concussed? Should I come off? Should I see the doctor?”
Now, much of that process is deliberately taken out of our hands – and I think that’s one of
the best changes our game has made.
The doctor will call you off the ground. Your teammates are looking for signs that something isn’t right. Independent doctors are watching ARC vision. And importantly, players also feel empowered to say, “Something doesn’t feel right.”
We saw two example last round. The Brisbane Lions’ Lachie Neale was called from the ground when the ARC identified he had received a head knock against Geelong. While he was eventually cleared of concussion symptoms and allowed to resume playing, the Bulldogs Nick Coffield was not so fortunate the following night against Sydney, and is now on the sidelines under the protocols. Both examples showed how the responsibility no longer sits solely with the player. There are now multiple layers of protection to help make the right decision.
At training, instead of hearing, “You’ll be right,” you’re much more likely to hear, “Go and
check in with the doctor.”
We’ve become better at protecting each other from our own competitive instincts.
Elite athletes are wired to keep playing. We don’t want to miss games, leave our teammates a player down or lose our spot. Left to our own judgment, many of us would convince ourselves we’re OK. That’s why I no longer see the protocols as rules trying to stop us playing football – I see them as protection from our own competitive selves.
Years ago, the concern might have been, “I’m going to miss seven days.” Today, the conversation is much bigger than that. It’s about your long-term brain health and the life you’ll live long after football.
We’ve also seen powerful examples of players putting long-term health ahead of short-term football. Watching Geelong’s Tom Stewart take the time he needed before returning after concussion reflected how much attitudes have changed. More profoundly, the retirements of Chelsea Randall and Angus Brayshaw because of ongoing concussion concerns have reminded everyone that this issue extends well beyond the next game.
Those decisions shape the culture for the next generation of players.
Football will always be a physical game and head knocks won’t disappear completely. But the greatest change hasn’t been another protocol or assessment tool. It’s that players no longer see concussion management as something standing between them and football – we see it as something protecting us long after football.
That’s the cultural shift I’ve witnessed over the course of my career. Toughness is no loner about staying on the field at all costs. It’s about having the courage to protect your own brain, to protect the brains of those around you, and to think beyond next week to the life you’ll live after football.
The toughest players I know today aren’t the ones who ignore a head knock. They’re the ones who respect it.
That’s the new definition of toughness.
It’s a culture worth protecting – not just for the next generation of footballers, but for every player pulling on the boots today, from the AFL and AFLW right through to community football across the country.
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