InsIde Football Wednesday, June 20, 2012

18 Inside features18

InsIde Football Wednesday, June 20, 2012

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THIS year there are 79 indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Australians on club lists, which equates to 11 per cent of

AFL players. This is more than four times the percentage of

indigenous Australians in the general population (2.5 per cent).

Footy fans are often in awe of the skills of indigenous players of the past like Gavin Wanganeen and the Krakouer brothers, and current players like Buddy Franklin, Adam Goodes and Liam Jurrah to name a few.

It’s clear that many indigenous players have extra­ordinary ball handling and evasiveness skills, speed and spatial awareness. Never has this been more evident than the Round 11 Carlton vs Geelong game where the first half was a highlights reel showcasing Eddie Betts and Steven Motlop’s skills.

The question of what sets indigenous players apart from other footballers can be a catalyst for debate on factors including race, genetics and culture, and

It’s not black and white

reflects curiosities around the excellence of other races in a variety of sports.

Parallels exist between the talent of indigenous Australians for AFL football and the talents of athletes from a range of races for particular sports. For example, the dominance of African­American players in the NBL, of East African, in particular Kenyan and Ethiopian, middle and long distance runners, and of sprinters of West African descent.

Although the evidence to support a genetic influence on performance is increasing, the commonality between the excellence of certain racial groups in particular sports appears to be lifestyle and access.

Associate Professor Barry Judd is a descendent of the Pitjantjatjara people of north west South Australia and researches Aboriginals in Australian football.

He explains that the social aspect of a person’s culture can have a dramatic influence on the talents built through access and opportunity.

“The kind of thing that I’ve become aware of is that the similarities are in regards to limited opportunities in other areas of life,” Judd said.

“A good example would be the NBL in the USA; most people say that African­ American players dominate because ‘white men can’t jump’.

“I don’t support that view, but the kind of cultural context in which many of those players have emerged – urban communities where there’s not much available in terms of facilities but they do

generally have an open area of asphalt or concrete where they can throw a basketball around –explains why so many become good basketballers.

“There are no swimming pools in those communities so perhaps that’s why they don’t become world leaders in that sport.”

It has been suggested that East African children are known to run distances to school every day and that the combination of this necessity as part of their lifestyle and their work ethic goes a long way to explaining their success in elite distance running.

In the same way the talents of many an NBL player were honed on a community basketball court needing just one ball, a single football can engage up to 40 participants at a time.

Sports like cricket and swimming are not as accessible as they require more equipment or specialised facilities. Whether indigenous players are from remote communities, the city or rural Australia, one football can bring together players of all ages and families, and contribute to developing high­end skills in the game.

Factors such as race, genetics and culture can be confusing for some people.

The talents demonstrated by indigenous players are unquestionable, it’s perceptions of the origin of this talent that prompted Judd and his colleague, Associate Professor Christopher Hallinan, to investigate further. To get a clear picture of what is understood about the talents of indigenous players, Hallinan and Judd interviewed AFL recruiters to shed light on their beliefs, and how recruiting strategies involving indigenous players had changed. Their research was published in 2009.

“I think there’s a lot of confusion about the difference between genetics and this old idea of race,” Judd said.

“Many people find it difficult to separate those two things. I think there is a confusion of the concept of race with the contemporary understanding we have about genetics.

“Part of what we see in our article is that many of these attributes have nothing to do with race but are the outcome of cultural practices.”

Judd clarifies this point by reflecting on his research into Carton’s dual premiership player Syd Jackson from when he was a young baby.

“I retraced Syd Jackson’s life to when he was playing VFL for Carlton,” Judd said. “That story really is a similar one to the one that Sean Gorman wrote about the Krakouer brothers in Brotherboys.

“Syd, like the Krakouers, was removed to a mission in Western Australia. The kids there didn’t have toys, didn’t have teddy bears, none of the things that kids normally get, but they did have AFL footies that became like substitute teddy bears.

“They ended up sleeping with them in their beds as kids, they carried them around everywhere, they handpassed them around.

“The culture of the mission era in the 1940s and 1950s in Western Australia was such that these Aboriginal boys developed skills that would later on become important in league footy.”

“When we talk about culture it doesn’t have to be about traditional Aboriginal culture, it could be the culture of Aboriginal missions during that period.

“This is where racial attributes become confused with the cultural context in which people grow up. I understand from the Krakouer

brothers’ story that they came from a disadvantaged background as Aboriginal kids in rural Western Australia, and about the only thing they had to share was the footy.

“They would kick it in the dark to each other and respond to voice commands and that’s how they became so good at knowing where the other one was.

“That became represented as some king of magical quality that Aboriginal footy players have.

“I guess it’s a denial also of the hard work and

Why are indigenous players such gifted footballers? The answer is probably not in genetics, as DR JODI RICHARDSON explains.

Nature or nurture?

EXTRAORDINARY SPEED: Lance Franklin.

TRAILBLAZER: Syd Jackson.

BROTHERLY BOND: Phil Krakouer.

practice that Aboriginal people have put into developing those skills.”

The number of indigenous Aussies playing elite Australian rules has steadily increased over the years.

In 2005, there were 52 indigenous players on AFL lists, now it’s 79.

The growth is a representation of the talents of the players and the AFL’s efforts to increase the participation of indigenous Australians.

In particular, the introduction of the Racial Vilification Rule 30 in 1995 saw the number of indigenous players in the AFL rise significantly.

Indigenous players are attractive to recruiters, the “gatekeepers of the game”, for a range of reasons related to skill, speed, agility and ball handling.

Hallinan and Judd reported in their 2009 research paper that AFL recruiters still understood the abilities and talents of Aboriginal players in terms of race and culture, not as an outcome of perseverance or dedication to the game.

“Aborigines were therefore viewed as exceptionally talented Australian football players not because of the efforts of individuals to achieve excellence in the sport but due to a set of ‘unique’ prescribed characteristics and traits determined biologically in their ‘Aboriginal’ genes and culturally in their ‘Aboriginal’ awareness of time/space,” they wrote.

The race-based understandings of recruiters also suggested that Aboriginal players were suited to playing in certain positions as a result of their characterisation as “fast, speedy, short-burst specialists, slightly built, lacking endurance and lacking height”.

Clearly Franklin (196 cm and 102kg) and two-time Brownlow medallist Adam Goodes (194 cm and 99kg) don’t fit this stereotype, having height, solid builds and big aerobic capacities.

Goodes and countless other Aboriginal players have also successfully played a range of positions, Goodes playing ruck, midfield, wing and in the forward line for Sydney.

“What we found was what we would find in any population of non-indigenous Australians. That is, for many people their understanding of Aborigines is based on very old stories on Aboriginal people and what they are like, without having any real direct experience to shape or maybe change those ideas,” Judd said.

“Recruiters in our experience are just like any other section of mainstream Australian society and some are better informed than others.”

Other research (published in 2005) conducted by Hallinan also showed the variations in recruiter understanding of the origins of indigenous talent.

Where one recruiter commented “I think it comes from their genes”, by contrast another expressed the view that the best explanation for the athletic

InsIde Football Wednesday, June 20, 2012

‘ ’I look at the Adelaide midfield and it’s go a lot of wonderful players who work super hard. But who is their jet to break up the opposition? – Dermott Brereton

talents of indigenous players was the players’ developmental environment.

“What I would say is that I think that there is a possibility because of their background they might spend more time playing football – in particular, in an informal fashion – than their counterparts in white Australia,” the recruiter said.

“And I think that because they handle the ball so much that they’re forever watching it in flight and they are terrific at reading it – reading the play and handling the ball well.

“They hardly ever fumble and that comes back to my original hypothesis that they – the indigenous boys – it’s a social thing as much as anything – that in their communities it’s their way of life.

“They spend more time than their counterparts playing football and they become very good at playing in the forward pockets and half-forward flanks positions because that’s what’s required in those roles. If you don’t fumble the ball, if you read the ball in flight, then you can kick goals.”

There are still many questions to be answered regarding the reasons for the unique talents of indigenous players.

One thing the research does appear to reveal is their greater propensity for certain types of injury.

Which begs the question, how many talented indigenous players don’t make it to the big time due to injury?

Dr John Orchard, sports physician and co-author of the AFL Injury Report, reported that from 2002-08 Aboriginal players suffer higher rates of ACL injuries, hamstring, quadriceps and calf strains, but a lower rate of groin injuries and foot fractures.

More recent research (2011) conducted by Carolyn Taylor and colleagues (including Dr Orchard) on elite junior players reported that indigenous players displayed less hip rotation, reduced strength and more pain on other hip tests than other players.

Despite Orchard’s findings to the contrary,

Taylor’s research concluded that indigenous players were at greater risk of hip and groin injuries in Australian football.

“That indigenous players could be at greater risk for future groin injury does not complement previous data,” Taylor said.

“Considering this (Orchard’s) finding is over 10 years old, and the percentage of indigenous players has more than doubled in this time, and the demands of the game have changed substantially in recent years, it is feasible that the incidence of groin injury in this population has also changed.”

Taylor and her colleagues suggest a range of factors that could predispose indigenous players to injury, including morphology (anatomy) and environmental differences as groin injuries are more common in warmer Australian climates as the grounds are harder in the northern states; a rapid increase in the volume of training for players who had difficulty travelling large distances during the off-season to a central training base.

Taylor said there was scope for further research.“If we know what the indigenous players’

physiology is, know how to train them well and

prevent some of the soft tissue injuries that they get, it can have a massive influence on their ability to keep playing and benefits for their communities,” Taylor said.

Reducing the likelihood of injured indigenous players missing out on an AFL career, and keeping players in the game for longer, could also have a positive effect on the broader population.

Taylor sees certain research areas as important next steps in gaining more understanding into the injury profile of indigenous AFL players.

Further to that, these research ideas could help to answer questions around why they are such a talented group of AFL players.

To social scientists and sport scientists alike, this is a fascinating area of research but it also has implications on the understanding of indigenous culture for the wider community.

Sean Gorman, research fellow at Curtin University and author of Brotherboys, was spot on when he wrote: “One thing is clear: sport plays a very important and conspicuous role in Australian society. It is through sport that so much is mediated, viewed and understood.”

‘I think that because they handle the ball so much that they’re forever watching it in flight and they are terrific at reading it.’

DUAL BROWNLOW: Adam Goodes.SKILLED: Gavin Wanganeen.