Indigenous AFL players superstars of the competition

Updated May 26, 2009 10:03:50

There are more aboriginal football players in the Australian Rules Football competition than ever before. The sport's administrators are hoping that it's a trend that will increase, especially with two new teams in New South Wales and Queensland. These days, indigenous footballers command elite salaries, huge attention, and provide the game with some of it's most spectacular moments. On Saturday night at the MCG, Essendon and Richmond met in one of the biggest AFL games of the season - Dreamtime at the 'G' - to celebrate indigenous involvement in the game.

Presenter: Alison Caldwell
Speaker: Jason Mifsud, manager of the AFL's indigenous programs; Richard Tambling, Richmond player; Patrick Ryder, Essendon player; Michael Long, Former Essendon great

CALDWELL: In 1977 indigenous footballers made up just point six per cent of the competition's playing list. Today they make up 11 per cent of the AFL's list - that's 82 players across 16 players.

Jason Mifsud is the manager of the AFL's indigenous programs.

MIFSUD: Probably our first immediate target is to grow our list to 100 players. You know we want to get 100 players on our lists, we think that's really achievable. We're seeing some great work happening in communities right across the country now in terms of that engagement and transition into our talent programs in the AFL system.

CALDWELL: Enigmatic Richmond midfielder Richard Tambling grew up in 50 Mile Creek near Darwin.

TAMBLING: Personally I think the speed and just the skill that's involved in footy, being able to sit on someone and take a massive grab and kick goals and a lot of scores and stuff like that, just the excitement of it I think had me from day one.

CALDWELL: Richard Tambling played school football and eventually made it to the state team. It was only when he was playing for the Northern Territory in a national competition that AFL scouts first spotted him. He says football drove him to achieve things he never could have imagined.

TAMBLING: I think you'll see most Aboriginal and indigenous communities around Australia footy is basically the number one thing, and it's just an amazing driving force behind it. That's why school attendance, like the Clontarf Academy where it's based around footy have picked up ten-fold.

CALDWELL: The pioneers of modern day Indigenous football were players like Joe Johnson, Polly Farmer, Maurice Rioli, Che Cockatoo Collins and Nicky Winmar. A defining moment came in 1993 when Nicky Winmar's match-winning performance for St Kilda against Collingwood drew racist taunts from the Magpie cheer squad. Facing the crowd, Winmar lifted his jumper and pointed to his black skin saying "I'm proud to be black".

Essendon star Patrick Ryder was only six years old at the time.

PATRICK RYDER: Looking back on it now, it was a turning point, in the way he stood up and said that. You know, "We're here, and we're going to stay here". So, as Aboriginal players, footy is like a lifeline there for us. So without footy I wouldn't know what I'd be doing. Most of us aren't going to be lawyers and stuff, so yeah, didn't really do the schooling to get that sort of stuff. Footy is just a way that we can get ahead in life and make something of ourselves.

CALDWELL: Former Essendon great Michael Long is still involved in football.

LONG: Who would have thought years ago that we'd have an indigenous round and 88 boys on AFL lists. The game has changed, the game of old, no doubt there's been things along the way that have changed the game and there's been trail blazers and if you go back to Joe Johnson, to Maurice Rioli, you just see, we're not just making up the lists anymore. They're not on the lists because they're indigenous, but they're actually leading on field. They've really, the way the games of old have changed the rules and the running side of the game, I think it's really suited a lot of the indigenous boys' style of play. It's one week of the year where I hold your head up high but you also see the legacy living on through the players that are playing in the AFL now. And it's just wonderful to see.