I have to begin with a couple of disclaimers which reveal my bias. I'm an unreconstructed lefty from way back and I'm also of Aboriginal descent, so this is an issue dear to my heart. Nevertheless, even Tiger fans who don't share my natural predilection to celebrate our clubs recent success in this area have rightly celebrated it anyway. Who could not enjoy the sight of Stacky doing his bit pregame at Dreamtime? What Tiger heart wouldn't have stirred at the fairy-tale redemption of Marlion on GF day?
Much has been made of the role of the Institute, of the appointment of Xavier Clarke. I also remember the pioneering role of Joel Bowden, who used to take players like Richo to visit remote communities in NT where his Dad used to teach.
Now our club is reaping the reward of this cultural foundation, as we thrill to the sublime skills of the likes of Rioli, Pickett, Stack, Edwards and Bolton. We also get to laugh at the clubs (in particular those in WA) that missed out on multiple opportunities to recruit Stack and Pickett. After the disaster of picking Yarran, Richmond surely had every excuse to be gun-shy of taking a punt of talented indigenous players from the wrong side of the tracks. But they weren't.
In the wake of the grand final I had a little visit to the West Coast and Fremantle boards to have a look at what they had to say about these two and noticed that, while a number of posters expressed regret at missing out, there seemed to be a general consensus. This consensus is that they both had to get out of the temptations of Perth and that Richmond had the culture and infrastructure to deal with whatever issues the two might face.
This is, in my opinion, a cop out - particularly the point about infrastructure. We have the infrastructure at Richmond because WE DELIBERATELY SET OUT TO BUILD IT! Why the f#@k didn't the two teams based in a state famous for its wealth in indigenous talent construct something like that infrastructure? Moreover, to cite concerns about indigenous players going off the rails as a reason not to recruit, when you consider the track record of the non indigenous Eagles players over the years in this regard, is more than a little ingenuous.
My sister recently retired from a long career as a public servant in Canberra. Towards the end of her career she had an amazing job to do with Aboriginal heritage which saw her visit nearly every Aboriginal community in Australia. She said to me once that if you want to know which part of Australia is most like the deep south, don't think of Queensland or the Northern Territory. The worst racism is in country WA.
I couldn't help but think of this as I noticed some of the nasty comments about Pickett - which seemed exclusively to come from West Coast fans (not so much from Freo posters to be honest, but that sort of makes sense).
The final thing that triggered this post was a recent visit to the Pies board where I noticed a thread bemoaning their failure with regards to indigenous recruiting. There was a lot of discussion about why. One poster asked why indigenous players would want to come to a team with a racist president and was duly howled down. But another poster made the observation (without they or anyone else drawing out the obvious conclusion) that Matt Rendell was hired by Collingwood after being given the arse by Adelaide.
That's right. The bloke who was sacked for publicly stating that it wasn't worth recruiting indigenous players was given a job straight away by Eddie.
Which finally got me to thinking about the curious parallels between McChins and Peggy and Benny. All came from working class backgrounds. All rose out of that to join the corporate world. There is a difference, though. Eugene Debs famously stated that he would rather rise "with the ranks" rather than from them. Eddie, the Broady boy, clearly made his decision the other way.
Much has been made of the role of the Institute, of the appointment of Xavier Clarke. I also remember the pioneering role of Joel Bowden, who used to take players like Richo to visit remote communities in NT where his Dad used to teach.
Now our club is reaping the reward of this cultural foundation, as we thrill to the sublime skills of the likes of Rioli, Pickett, Stack, Edwards and Bolton. We also get to laugh at the clubs (in particular those in WA) that missed out on multiple opportunities to recruit Stack and Pickett. After the disaster of picking Yarran, Richmond surely had every excuse to be gun-shy of taking a punt of talented indigenous players from the wrong side of the tracks. But they weren't.
In the wake of the grand final I had a little visit to the West Coast and Fremantle boards to have a look at what they had to say about these two and noticed that, while a number of posters expressed regret at missing out, there seemed to be a general consensus. This consensus is that they both had to get out of the temptations of Perth and that Richmond had the culture and infrastructure to deal with whatever issues the two might face.
This is, in my opinion, a cop out - particularly the point about infrastructure. We have the infrastructure at Richmond because WE DELIBERATELY SET OUT TO BUILD IT! Why the f#@k didn't the two teams based in a state famous for its wealth in indigenous talent construct something like that infrastructure? Moreover, to cite concerns about indigenous players going off the rails as a reason not to recruit, when you consider the track record of the non indigenous Eagles players over the years in this regard, is more than a little ingenuous.
My sister recently retired from a long career as a public servant in Canberra. Towards the end of her career she had an amazing job to do with Aboriginal heritage which saw her visit nearly every Aboriginal community in Australia. She said to me once that if you want to know which part of Australia is most like the deep south, don't think of Queensland or the Northern Territory. The worst racism is in country WA.
I couldn't help but think of this as I noticed some of the nasty comments about Pickett - which seemed exclusively to come from West Coast fans (not so much from Freo posters to be honest, but that sort of makes sense).
The final thing that triggered this post was a recent visit to the Pies board where I noticed a thread bemoaning their failure with regards to indigenous recruiting. There was a lot of discussion about why. One poster asked why indigenous players would want to come to a team with a racist president and was duly howled down. But another poster made the observation (without they or anyone else drawing out the obvious conclusion) that Matt Rendell was hired by Collingwood after being given the arse by Adelaide.
That's right. The bloke who was sacked for publicly stating that it wasn't worth recruiting indigenous players was given a job straight away by Eddie.
Which finally got me to thinking about the curious parallels between McChins and Peggy and Benny. All came from working class backgrounds. All rose out of that to join the corporate world. There is a difference, though. Eugene Debs famously stated that he would rather rise "with the ranks" rather than from them. Eddie, the Broady boy, clearly made his decision the other way.
