Culture matters to proud Noongar man Bradley Hill, much like it does to Jamie Bennell, Hill's close friend and distant cousin.
The pair have close ties as Bennell, a former Melbourne Demon and West Coast Eagle, grew up with Hill around the Western Australian town of Bunbury, about 170km south of Perth.
However Jed Bennell, Jamie's nine-year-old son, may have both covered in respects to knowledge of their lineage from WA's Pindjarup country.
The father and son visited Moorabbin during a recent St Kilda training session to bring back boots that were painted for Hill for this year's Sir Doug Nicholls Indigenous rounds.
The aspiring young Noongar-Yamatji artist has wowed Hill since picking up a paintbrush for the first time a little more than one year ago.
"I have known Jamie for a long time – we're actually related," Hill told Saints TV.
"Our family is from Bunbury, south-west of Perth, and his little boy, Jed, has been doing our culture's painting.
"He's actually already done a design on some jocks that all us (St Kilda) boys have had the jocks on.
"He can pull out some pretty special work and he asked could he get my boots painted too, and look, they have come up amazing."
The white boots were near unrecognisable after more than a splash of paint.
The big-dotted circles near the shoe laces and close to the soles of the boots represent where the love of the game all started for Hill in Western Australia while the smaller circle nearby is for AFL club Fremantle, where he played 2017-2019.
The kangaroo footprints across the boots represents the journey from the West all the way east to the dotted circles of Melbourne.
The smaller dots beside Melbourne are St Kilda on one side and Hawthorn, Hill's first AFL club before returning back to WA for his time with the Dockers, on the other.
But the irony would not be lost on Hill that both matches in the round that celebrates Indigenous football was against his two former clubs.
There are also blue circles surrounded by dots painted to display Hill's support system that includes teammates, Hill himself, his wife Samantha, and his two young children.
"To have someone like the young fella come through, giving him the opportunity to do his artwork and put it out on the big stage is pretty special," Hill said.
"Just the talent he's got is amazing to see, and hopefully he can keep sticking at it, and he will have a bright future ahead doing this sort of stuff.
"He has been doing it for a year, but it looks like he has been doing it for a lifetime – and he's just nine years of age. Yeah, he's special and I love the boots – they're awesome."
Hill, in his fifth year on Boonwurrung land, was most impressed with the storytelling.
"We want to inspire our younger generation and he's (Jed) definitely got a lot of potential," he said.
"I can't wait to see where he goes with this, and hopefully he will do many more boots for me and other players to come in the future."
While Bennell's son did not get to see his dad represent their culture on the AFL field, the politely-spoken youngster said Hill was his favourite player in the AFL despite the wingman's career beginning at the Hawks before the artist was born.
"I was watching the Sir Doug Nicholls round (in 2023), and I wanted to start painting because it made me so proud of who I am and of my culture," Jed said.
"I can't wait to tell my friends, my teachers and I like to thank him for an opportunity because I can't thank him enough."
