Concussion for Parents, Coaches and Community Clubs

Everything else is detail. If a club official, parent or coach gets these three right, the serious harm is largely prevented.

Waiting for a loss of consciousness. Most concussions do not involve one, and waiting for it means missing most of them.

Accepting the player's own assessment. A concussed brain is the wrong instrument for judging whether it is concussed, and players in a contest badly want to keep playing. This is precisely why the decision is taken away from them.

Treating quick symptom resolution as an all-clear. The AFL's May 2026 update states explicitly that briefly resolving symptoms do not rule out a concussion.

Sending the athlete to a dark room for a week. Current guidance is relative rest — light activity from 24 to 48 hours, and back to school early with supports rather than late without them.

Getting a scan for reassurance. A normal CT is expected in concussion and does not mean the person is fine or ready to play. Imaging answers a different question.

Both major codes now expect documented processes rather than good intentions. Australian football clubs manage concussion records and the clearance workflow digitally through PlayHQ, and the AFL provides a concussion hub with club, parent and coach resources. Rugby clubs work to the Blue Card procedure, which from under-13s upward gives the referee the authority to remove a player, and to the Concussion Referral and Return form — a player who does not complete it is excluded from contact indefinitely.

In practical terms a community club needs: someone at every match who can recognise concussion and is empowered to remove a player; a written record of every suspected concussion and the date it occurred; a clear handover to the parent or player of what to do and when to seek help; a known pathway to a doctor for assessment and clearance; and an annual refresh so it does not depend on one committed volunteer who moves on.

Schools should have a concussion management plan reviewed each year, and a medical assessment is recommended where difficulties arise with returning to learning.

For a child or adolescent, school comes before sport without exception, and full-time attendance comes before extra-curricular activity. That ordering is deliberate — the cognitive load of a school day is a demand on the same recovering system, and stacking training on top of a student who is not yet coping academically is how a straightforward recovery becomes a protracted one.

Practical supports at school are short-term and specific: reduced hours to begin with, permission to leave the classroom for a rest break, a reduced workload, and extra time in assessments. These taper as tolerance returns.

Watch for the emotional side. Irritability, tearfulness and uncharacteristic frustration are recognised concussion symptoms, not behaviour to be disciplined, and a teenager removed from their sport and their social group for three weeks has lost more than training. Keeping them connected to the team in a non-playing role through the stand-down is worth more than it sounds.

Clubs frequently ask about pre-season baseline testing. It is worth being clear about its role. A baseline gives an individual comparison point, which can be useful in interpreting a post-injury assessment where a single score sits in a normal range but is well below that person's own norm.

What it does not do is diagnose concussion, and it does not gate a return to play. The AFL's May 2026 update specifically clarified the limitations of baseline testing in children and adolescents, where normal developmental change between the baseline and the injury undermines the comparison. No Australian guideline requires baseline testing, and a club should not be sold it as a substitute for having a removal policy, a record and a clearance pathway.

Dr Hatch provides assessment and the medical clearance that both the AFL community guidelines and Rugby Australia require before a player returns to full-contact training or competition, and can supervise the graded return-to-learn and return-to-sport progression alongside a player's physiotherapist and school.

For clubs, that extends to pre-season baseline assessment where a club has decided it wants one and understands its limits, and to advisory work on concussion policy, sideline processes, documentation and education for coaches, trainers and parents. If your club has no reliable pathway to a doctor for clearance — which is the most common gap in community sport — that is worth solving before the season rather than during it.