{"id":787443,"date":"2026-07-08T17:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/787443\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T17:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:46:14","slug":"country-footy-player-finds-new-sport-after-suffering-eight-concussions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/787443\/","title":{"rendered":"Country footy player finds new sport after suffering eight concussions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angus Pitman had a promising football career ahead of him, but after eight concussions on the country footy field by the age of 16, he was forced to leave behind the game he loved.<\/p>\n

It was a devastating blow after playing several matches with the SA National Football League’s (SANFL) West Adelaide development squad and having his heart set on footy.<\/p>\n

“I still made the effort to come out and run water at the local games [after my concussions], because it’s where all your mates are and where all the community is,” he said.<\/p>\n

When he was no longer able to play football, Pitman was asked to become an assistant coach at his local Renmark Rovers club and turned to rowing as an alternative sport.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Angus Pitman wants people to take head knocks seriously. (ABC Riverland: Jackson Byrne)<\/p>\n

“I didn’t play any sport for about a year because I was going through year 12 and it was a bit too much \u2026 so I started [going to] the gym \u2026 to get my mind off of things,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Dad said, ‘Go have a crack,’ with the rowing and I just stayed around.<\/p>\n

“The [local club] created an out-of-school program which I was included in because there was no-one my age \u2026 now we’ve been training four or five times a week and I’m loving it.”<\/p>\n

After five months of training and competing in local rowing events in the Riverland, the now 18-year-old has his sights set on rowing competitively in the future.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Angus Pitman is hoping to reach the national junior rowing benchmark. (ABC Riverland: Jackson Byrne)<\/p>\n

“The Rowing Australia benchmark [for junior men] is covering eight and a half kilometres in 30 minutes and at the moment I’m rowing 8.2 kilometres,” Pitman said.<\/p>\n

Head knock risk is real<\/p>\n

The ABC’s Four Corners program revealed more than 30<\/a> Australian Rules football players had been diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).<\/p>\n

It can only be diagnosed after death and is caused by repeated hits to the head.<\/p>\n

Traumatic brain injury researcher Frances Corrigan said repeated head bumps over time could also increase the risk of other diseases like motor neurone, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Frances Corrigan says concussion recovery is different for everyone. (ABC News: Angus Paterson)<\/p>\n

She said more research was needed into the impact of repeated head hits and concussions.<\/p>\n

“We’re not sure which people are going to be most at risk,” the associate professor\u00a0from Adelaide University said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“With concussions, everyone’s recovery trajectory can be quite individual.<\/p>\n

“At the moment, we can’t determine which people are going to recover well \u2026 [or] which will recover more slowly from their initial presentation.”<\/p>\n

Concussion rule questions<\/p>\n

Under community AFL guidelines, a player who suffers a concussion can only return to play on the 21st day after a concussion if they get medical clearance.<\/p>\n

Murray Valley Football Netball League president Andrew Schultz said while the rule was clear, it required people to self-report and there was potential to “cut corners”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Andrew Schultz says it is hard to know if all community football clubs are following concussion guidelines. (ABC Riverland: Jackson Byrne)<\/p>\n

He said some clubs, especially those short on numbers, could be downplaying the impact of a head knock if there was pressure about getting into finals or a best player was taken out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The protocols that are in place and how they’re followed all flows down to what does happen on Saturday at a club level,” he said.<\/p>\n

“From the AFL through down through [to] our country leagues there’s been a big revamp in the last few years and \u2026 they’ve really focused on [concussions].<\/p>\n

“Some clubs are getting it right, some clubs aren’t.”<\/p>\n

SANFL executive general manager football\u00a0Matt Duldig told 891 ABC Adelaide’s<\/a> Jo Laverty while there was still work to do, the game had “never been safer from an incident perspective”.<\/p>\n

“Our game is underpinned by volunteers \u2026 it’s what makes community football so good across South Australia,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Angus Pitman (second in the back row) is still mates with his Renmark Rovers premiership-winning team. (ABC Riverland: Amelia Walters)<\/p>\n

“We need to make volunteers and coaches feel comfortable in taking a player off the field ensuring that they sit out for that minimum three weeks.<\/p>\n

“There’s always education to be done.”<\/p>\n

The AFL was contacted for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pitman said while he had not seen any corners being cut during his playing days, his message to the next crop of footy faithful was to take any knock seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I reckon some kids might get a concussion and no-one will even know about it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They won’t put up their hand because they don’t want to miss the next week of footy.”<\/p>\n

More news from regional SA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angus Pitman had a promising football career ahead of him, but after eight concussions on the country footy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,371617,64,63,55,639,74603,40101,371619,371622,371618,30766,28599,596,9116,371616,24003,371620,3899,17330,137725,588,85,371621],"class_list":["post-787443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-angus-pitman","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy","tag-concussion","tag-country-footy-concussion","tag-country-footy-cte","tag-country-footy-injuries","tag-cte","tag-degenerative-brain-disease","tag-football","tag-footy","tag-head-bump","tag-head-injury","tag-how-long-can-you-not-play-footy-for-after-concussion","tag-injury","tag-rowing","tag-sanfl","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-what-does-concussion-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}