The look-away-hand-ball is a skill that doesn't generally warrant any football analysis. It is a quirky play that when done correctly can switch play in a moment. Alternatively, if it is not precise it can be disastrous. Like the blind turn, think Marlion Pickett in the 2019 grand final or a Cyril Rioli hyper-reality reaction, these are plays invented in the moments. They defy explanation.
On the 24th of February David King tried to execute what can only be called a look away handball (read: idea) in the SEN studio. To increase the excitement and raise the profile of Indigenous football and deal with the decline in numbers King, in his words, got serious.
"I've got a serious one, I reckon the AFL Indigenous revival is upon us," King said, matter of fact.
"I think the AFL Marketing department need to get involved. The decline in numbers, 87 in 2020, down to 62 in 2025 and around that now." In this sentence King refers to the serious sizzle of Kozzie Picket and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and 'charging' into the 'top 10 bracket' of the AFL's marquee players.
For many listening and those who posted on the SEN Instagram account Kings 'look away handball' comment stuck like a Wayne Carey pack mark before his shoulders gave out. But despite the spirit in which King delivered his personal ideation, the devil was in the detail. King said so himself. That reality is there is a serious decline of Indigenous players in Australia's premium football code, a code that has benefitted greatly from Indigenous players for decades.
For many, and I was one of them, the Indigenous numbers in the AFL as they tracked into 2020 were looking healthy and set to grow. Processes and pathway programs had been developed and were producing outcomes across the nation. Off field, the AFL had also entered into a strategic media partnership with NITV to produce Yokai Footy show where a bloke by the name of Tony Armstrong cut his teeth. It was a strategic move by the AFL to get more people of colour on the screens and not just chasing the pill.
But lingering like a Marvel villain in a murky alleyway, COVID-19 struck with all the force of a tsunami. The damage the pandemic caused was untold. I had literally just started at the AFL in a full-time role having been out of work for nearly a year. I recall Gillon McLachlan standing like Moses in front of the staff at AFL House. His last sentence has stuck with me: "We will see this through we will beat this. We are the AFL." If there was a wall I would have run through it such was the power of his words and the cadence of its delivery.
One of the most important things McLachlan did during this period was install Indigenous Player Development Managers (IPDMS) into clubs. The role, like the broader Player Development Manager positions at clubs, was mandated to provide support for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players listed at the time.
Overseen by the AFL's Social and Emotional Wellbeing team and AFL Executive Tanya Hosch AM, the IPDM's were critically important jobs to help First Nations Players deal with the disconnection that COVID brought on. The reason for this was the disconnection experienced by Indigenous footballers because of things like homesickness is acutely different for this cohort. This is because social obligation and extended kinship sensibilities are different for First Nations peoples. Further, notions of success as it relates to Indigenous players and the marketing of Picket and Wanganeen-Milera as suggested by King to address the decline in Indigenous numbers is fraught.
Let me explain.
In my experience of some 30 years working and researching in the field of Indigenous sport history, Indigenous AFL players generally see the notion of 'success' very differently. The repping of the family or mob sits at number one, two and three of the motivation to play at the elite level. That notion of family consists of entire communities and extends out. In this way, the pressure from the family can be in some cases overwhelming and difficult to navigate especially when for many they are seen as the provider of that community. As one Indigenous premiership player told me once: "I'd just got drafted and my entire family thought I was a millionaire." He went on to say despite his rookie wage he was obligated to give money to whichever family member who asked for it. No questions asked.
While King's idea has some merit in a general sense the problem is once it is properly scrutinised via the filter of what I will call Indigenous world views and inferencing it falls down. I don't know Wanganeen-Milera but I have met Pickett several times and what I know of him is he is very quiet, almost bordering on shy and retiring. To market them "within an inch of their lives" won't work in getting the Indigenous pathway numbers back at pre COVID levels. The reason for this is it is a sugar hit, not a strategic reform.
More work needs to be done to rebuild the numbers, through targetted action and resourcing where consultation and data are used to grow the cohort and support it. Planning not campaigns are what are needed.
I recall standing on the sidelines about five years ago with Pauly Vandenbergh, at the time the AFL's National Indigenous engagement manager, at an NGA twilight match at Mineral Resources Park in Perth. There was a young man for the Eagles NGA simply ripping the game apart. At the end of the game Vandenbergh showed me a list of players the selectors determined would progress. A red dot next to their names meant they were through. The young man in question inexplicably did not have a red dot next to his.
Marketers and snake oil are never going to address the reason why the decline has been so great in five years and it never can. It will take graft and patience as 2020 has taken a toll on Australia's code the likes we have never seen and King's idea, like the look away handball, should be discouraged at every turn.
Dr Sean Gorman is a senior research fellow and the author of Brotherboys: The story of Jim and Phillip Krakouer (2005) and Legends: The AFL Indigenous Team of the Century (2011).
