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.

Every community club, whatever the sport, needs a documented process rather than good intentions. The cross-code clinical principles are recognition, immediate removal, a safe handover, medical assessment and a staged return. Each governing body may add its own workflow. Australian football uses PlayHQ for concussion records and clearance, while rugby uses the Blue Card procedure and the Concussion Referral and Return form; these are practical examples, not the only codes supported here.

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 works with athletes and clubs from every sport, providing medical assessment and return-to-sport documentation under the ANZ Concussion Guidelines, with the relevant governing body's policy applied on top. AFL community football and Rugby Australia are two examples that specifically require a medical doctor before return to full contact. The graded return can be supervised alongside the player's physiotherapist, school or workplace.

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.