I’M FULLY aware of the dangerous territory I’m about to step into.
I was one of the thousands of viewers who tuned into the AFL Draft on Wednesday night and saw 11 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players enter the Big League.
Some of those draftees were tall, including No.1 overall pick Jamarra Ugle-Hagan – the first Indigenous top selection since Des Headland in 1998 – Joel Jeffrey, Josh Eyre and Cody Brand.
Others project to fill the small forward role most often associated with Aboriginal football talents.
Think Eddie Betts, Cyril Rioli, Jeff Farmer, Phil Matera and the Krakouer brothers, Phil and Jim.
With Betts preparing for what will almost certainly be his final AFL season in 2021, it’s Charlie Cameron and Liam Ryan who lead the way nowadays among Indigenous goalsneaks.
Cameron and Ryan unwittingly became part of a problem some viewers had with a certain part of Fox Footy’s draft coverage.
Small forwards Phoenix Spicer, Maurice Rioli jnr and Joel Western were selected within 12 picks of one another on the night.
What happens most in any draft, in any sport? Comparisons to established players. Sometimes they’re accurate, sometimes they’re a (serious) stretch and sometimes they’re lazy.
One expert on the night: "Another Indigenous small forward. There's a bit of a run on them. You know who they play like? It's either Liam Ryan or Charlie Cameron."
Ryan and Cameron are both Aboriginal, kick loads of goals, have achieved All-Australian status and are each capable of not only being deadly at ground level but can also take off for skyscraper marks.
In that respect, any emerging player being compared to that duo should be honoured.
However, critics took exception to the comparison to them, suggesting it was deliberately linked to race more so than playing style and a form of casual racism.
The ‘woke’ uprising – a buzz word for the perceived awareness of issues concerning social and racial justice – has certainly increased and never been more eagle-eyed (or eared).
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because we still hear some laughably bad and cringeworthy references to the Indigenous community.
I immediately think of a certain Channel Seven commentator’s bumbling, but probably well-meaning, reference to a section of the crowd at one of the Darwin-based AFL games this year.
There’s still a long way to go in this regard, but we also need to be careful not to always look for things that simply aren’t there.
Live TV and radio are a goldmine for gaffes and you can’t take it back once something’s been said in the heat of the moment.
At the same time, if you’re trusted with speaking on either medium then you also have a responsibility to be smart with your words.
Aboriginal footballers, in many cases, spectacularly add to the AFL spectacle with their innate brilliance and skills – and often the best comparisons are to one another.
In this week’s case, we should instead be celebrating 11 more Indigenous players joining an AFL senior list rather than any unfair racism controversies.
That number equated to 13 per cent of the national draft pool, well above the 3.3 per cent Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander representation in the overall Australian population.
Let’s talk about that.
Marc McGowan is an experienced sports journalist who’s covered Australian Football and tennis at the highest level. Now a freelancer, he worked most recently for AFL.com.au and has been published in The Herald Sun, The NT News, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-Mail, The Australian and Australian Tennis Magazine. Marc completed an Honours degree in Communications from Monash University and has won awards for his feature writing.
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