Just before Covid hit, and just when Australian sport was beginning to properly come to terms with the effects of concussion, the former Hawthorn footballer Tim Boyle wrote a piece for The Sunday Age titled “The new form of courage may be not to play at all”. I thought of that piece when Daniel Venables retired, when Angus Brayshaw retired and when Collingwood’s Nathan Murphy called time on his career on Tuesday morning.
These days, when a footballer retires, they stand in an auditorium before their teammates. There are sniffles and trembles and tortuous pauses. Many now read from the Notes section of their iPhone. But for those who are retiring as a result of concussion, there’s a giant exhale. There’s a life to lead. There’s a world outside football.
