Wed, August 26, 2026
Former professional cricketer launches legal action against the school he attended over alleged mismanagement of a concussion he suffered
28-year-old former Australian Test cricketer, Will Pucovski, has launched legal action against the private school he attended, Brighton Grammar, over alleged mismanagement of a concussion he suffered. His coach at the school allegedly ordered pupils to “go in hard” against each other during training, which Pucovski alleges caused the first of a series of concussions which ended his career aged 27.
Pucovski is now taking legal against Brighton Grammar, a private school in Brighton, Australia, based on a concussion he claims to have suffered during an Australian rules football training session in 2014 when he would have been 16 years old. Australian rules football training is a high-intensity program designed to build the endurance, agility, strength, and specialised skills needed for Aussie rules football, a fast-paced contact sport played between two teams of 18 players.
Pucovski was allegedly knocked in the left temple by his teammate’s knee during a sling tackle performed in a training drill which rendered Pucovski unconscious. As mentioned above, Pucovski claims that his coach ordered students to “go in hard.” Allegedly, after Pucovski’s team had lost a game to another school by “a very substantial margin,” such physical aggressiveness was encouraged even more by his coach.
Even though Pucovski left the field for the rest of the drill, he claims his coach asked him if he could continue with the next drill and Pucovski therefore returned to the field for the remainder of the session, which Pucovski’s lawyers claim showed a “contumelious disregard” for his health.
The school also allegedly failed to inform Pucovski’s parents of the concussion he suffered. It is claimed Pucovski was diagnosed with a concussion 3 days later and he had continued to go to school with a headache in the time in between.
That weekend, Pucovski was allegedly allowed to be a runner during a match at the school, a person who helps the team during a match by running messages of instructions from the coach to players on the field. He claims this led to nausea, since he had not fully recovered, and only then was he ordered to refrain from physical activity and stay home from school for 6 weeks by a doctor.
He also claims to have suffered 13 known concussions from balls to the head throughout his cricket career. He alleges that the original head injury he suffered at school created a medical issue that was aggravated by the later concussions he faced during his time as a professional cricketer.
Therefore, he has filed a writ in the Supreme Court of Victoria, and his lawyers are claiming that the coach in question did not have appropriate accreditation for his position and should have arranged a medical assessment following the incident.
Overall, Pucovski’s lawyers argue that the concussion and mismanagement of the injury have caused the former cricketer to suffer from long-term vision problems, frequent migraines, fatigue, motion sickness and even OCD and anxiety.
Separately from this case, according to a study released on Tuesday, at least 1 in 4 former National Football League (NFL) players who died between 2016 and 2021 were found to have had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain disease associated with repeated head impacts or concussions.
“The bulk of the head impacts that these former NFL players experienced didn't occur at the NFL level. They occurred at the collegiate level...and at the high school level and in many cases the youth level. And all of those cumulative hits to the head added up to result in an increased risk,” said Daniel Daneshvar, the chair of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Mass General Brigham and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School.
He told Reuters: “We know that nearly 70% of head impacts are occurring in practice. So, without changing a single minute of game time at any of those levels, we can be substantially reducing the cumulative head impact burden that these individuals are experiencing throughout their lives.”
The Ivy League, a group of eight prestigious U.S. universities, banned full-contact tackling during American football practice in 2016.
Sport Resolutions’ previous annual conference explored how athletes face unique risk factors, from injury and concussion to identity loss, pain, performance pressure, and mental health stigma, all of which can increase vulnerability. To find out more about the session that was delivered, please click here.
