In the final days before St Kilda's AFL season opener against Geelong, the man behind stoking the fire of its smoking ceremony said inside the changeroom there's a burning desire to add the values of First Nations culture into their football.

That transition of attitudes over the years has very little to do with just the Indigenous side of a playing list that generally has always had one of the largest numbers of Aboriginal players at an AFL club.

But since Steve Parker, born to Yorta Yorta and Torres Strait Islander heritage but raised on the same Boonwurrung Country to the Saints' heartland at Moorabbin, hosted the annual Indigenous acknowledgements for St Kilda that landscape has changed further.

"In 2019, I did a really big cultural session with the boys for the Indigenous Round up against Carlton at Marvel Stadium – we did a smoking ceremony in there," he opens up for the National Indigenous Times afterwards.

"The significance of what all the players learned through our cultural sessions is they wanted us to come in, do a ceremonial act with our ochre before we went out on the ground.

"That was significant and it really built their camaraderie and the Country that they were on.

"From the players, they really have wanted to respect First Nations people and where they are situated on Boonwurrung Country."

St Kilda has welcomed 35 Indigenous players, including two females over its current AFLW program, across the club's storied 151-year past.

In the past 40 seasons alone, the Saints have recruited 31 Indigenous players, and just since Parker's involvement at the club, he has performed in front of 12 blackfullas.

The ceremonies to welcome in a new season only came about after recent ex-skipper, now retired, Jarryd Geary contacted Parker following conversations with both former cultural mentor Alex Murray, St Kilda's 17th Indigenous player, and ex-Essendon star Nathan Lovett-Murray, a one-time Indigenous liaison officer at Moorabbin.

That game that changed the cultural horizon at the club the Saints got up by 13 points they attributed to Parker's teachings.

The players were sold from that point on. Completely hooked.

It is the only Victorian club Parker is aware that has an Indigenous relationship every year involving a smoking ceremony for one.

"I first spoke to them about the importance of when we perform or whether we're in a ceremony that we always slap each other on the back with ochre, and that's about having each other's back out there," Parker says.

"That really gelled with them and when they played that game (against Carlton), they all had ochre on the backs."

Current captain Jack Steele has continued that influence and joined his Indigenous teammates in standing for reconciliation in a January 26 online video this year by adding "to achieve true reconciliation, we need to listen, learn, and understand".

Parker said the fact that non-Indigenous leaders like Geary and Steele have embraced the insight of First Nations culture has bonded them closer with the club's Aboriginal players that five of their six are 22 years of age or under.

"I've seen over the years that I have been there doing the cultural side of things, how strong they are getting within the player group," he acknowledges.

"Even the First Nations players are really up.

"It helps the team understand the importance (of the ceremony).

"Something I always go back to is that footy comes from our game of Marngrook.

"So the importance of playing respects to the Country that we're on is very significant for AFL clubs."

The club also extended that to an exchange of traditional Indigenous gifts since 2022.

The convention started in St Kilda's home matches before the club wanted to replicate it for away games.

Parker practices what he preaches, supplying the mob's gifts to trade with some of the other clubs through his own creations.

"I just happened to be a chippie (carpenter) by trade," he remarks, "and so I make my own traditional tools."

The pride of Parker's work has been crafting traditional Kulin nation shields and sets of Boonwurrung-specific boomerangs.

Katrina Amos, the mum of Hawthorn midfielder Karl Amon, who succeeded Lovett-Murray, instigated the handovers moments before the first bounce breaking up the bland rituals of the coin tosses.

"That's an ancient protocol too that we (Indigenous people) have been doing for many, many years," Parker says.

"For the club to get on board with that is very respectful for us First Nations, whether they are playing a home match or away.

"When they're going interstate too, people have to understand that these players have respect for the Country they're on too.

"That's part of, with our First Nations' people culture is to pay respects to the Country we're on and then that makes them feel welcome."

That respect skips back to Parker's recent smoking ceremony, whose theme was focused on resilience.

It's a yawa – Boonwurrong for a journey – all First Nations people have lived by ever since 1788 and the arrival of the British.

"The message I try and put out there comes along with messages of the club," Parker says.

"(The smoking ceremony is for) building that resilience to keep pushing and going on their journey towards getting to the top.

"I have seen a drive in them over the years and the club is using everything that they can to highlight what is right around them."

But no one told Parker's convenient firelighters that when the winds picked up off the bay and onto the lands of moorooboon.

"I had a little bit of trouble starting the fire," Parker laughs, "I grabbed the wrong box of firelighters."

"That was a hiccup at the start, but I got the fire going.

"There's something around that was about building resilience."

Parker welcomed every player, official and staff to the smoking ceremony

Every player were offered a leaf for safe passage onto Boonwurrung Country.

They added the leaves to the fire igniting and took in a breath.

Parker's blessing, akin to old-time Christian rituals that football clubs once employed from a bygone era, was for the season ahead.

When Parker performs ceremoniously, he dances on Country and uses ochre from the soil to connect as one to the land.

It is about focusing as the one team with no cultural divisions, and working for each other to ensure teammates have got each other's back on the field.

"That's the message I always bring to the table for the players," he explains.

"It's about coming out as one unit and we all come from different areas (of Australia), but when you're in ceremony that is when the important stuff happens.

"That was something Aunty Katrina brought up when I was having trouble getting the fire started and when we got it started that was the important message of resilience of not giving up and moving forward."