I used to think I was tough for playing footy seven days after a concussion. I was wrong

July 9, 2026 — 9:30am

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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........

© WA Today