The return of the AFL Indigenous All-Stars fixture is a step forward in a period of declining Indigenous participation in elite football, but is also a blast from the past.

Indigenous representation among the league's 18 clubs fell from 87 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders under contracts since the 2020 season to just 71 players last year, following a slow demise of First Nations players selected in recent drafts.

Tanya Hosch, the AFL's Executive General Manager Inclusion & Social Policy, pointed to the line that in Indigenous communities, "you can't be what you can't see" and this year was the right time to bring back the match involving a team full of Indigenous players on one side.

"It gives us an opportunity to really celebrate the Indigenous contribution to the game," the Torres Strait Islander told AFL.com.au this week.

"We often note the interaction between Indigenous players on opposing sides after a game.

"You notice the Indigenous players really seek each other out.

"There's a sense of solidarity and brotherhood that they bring, which is definitely culturally-based and worthy of celebration.

"So, I think that's what makes this exciting for them; to have a cohort of people, you know, when got people who are (often) related to each other and who really admire each other, getting the rare opportunity to play together as one team."

While the match was driven by the AFL, Hosch admitted the clash against Fremantle on Saturday night would not have happened if leading Indigenous players did not embrace the concept.

"It just says this year's (match) is important to them personally and culturally," Hosch said.

The celebration was born out of the most recent 2022 AFL Indigenous summit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players held in Geelong

Speaking their minds on football-related matters throughout the offseason, Hosch was asked if the AFL deliver an Indigenous All-Stars match similar to those from the past for the players to represent their culture for the first time in a decade.

They kept the promise – and not a moment too soon.

"I think they all loved the idea of having a team that can come together to demonstrate the best of their communities and create a platform where everyone can see just what it is they bring to the game, and have that joyous celebration of the collectivity and that shared spirit that they all bring to our great game," Hosch said.

Historically the football public have had a flirtation with Indigenous representative matches after one of the Koori mob's most revered figures brought the first fixture into the social consciousness when Australian rules football – like most sport of the time – needed a boost in the war days.

Sir Doug Nicholls, the namesake of the AFL's Indigenous Round, had proven integral in organising Aboriginal footballers, mostly from either Cummeragunja or Lake Tyers Aboriginal missions, to take on the Christian minister's former VFA side Northcote in 1944.

The encounter is said to have drawn 10,000 spectators, leading to return matches against Northcote over the next two years, another against VFA rival Oakleigh for charity, and a trend of exhibition games involving Aboriginal teams across the country for the rest of the decade.

The first recognised match by the game's national body, the Australian Football Council, involved another Aboriginal side facing the ACT in 1970.

Under Nicholls, the newly-named Aboriginal All-Stars took on a list of state teams throughout the 1973 winter to gain continuity before embracing for a short visit to Papua New Guinea – and that nation's first official international game – after a planned trip to Nauru was called off.

A representative team from Lae, one of Papua New Guinea's largest cities, caused an upset against the tourists before the Aboriginal campaigners narrowly lost to the national side in Port Moresby, and again a year later in Canberra.

In 1983 a new wave of players making their name in the VFL thrashed a Richmond side by 138 points after kicking a massive 38 goals.

The next contest was held in 1985 against reigning premiers Essendon on Nicholls' own Yorta Yorta Country in the Victorian town Tatura, pushing Kevin Sheedy's men all the way to fall short by just 16 points.

That same year, the All Stars lost at the MCG to the Premier's All Stars, comprising of some players from non-finals participating clubs.

The All Stars faced Collingwood nine years later in 1994, before another nine-year gap and a match with Carlton in 2003.

Both clubs had chequered pasts with Aboriginal stars, including when Nicholls left Carlton after Blues trainers had allegedly refused to massage him at training.

Both matches were the beginning of an official tradition of the All-Stars playing hosts to their representative fixtures in Darwin that drew around 15,000 against Collingwood and a further 17,500 against Carlton.

The Western Bulldogs faced the All Stars at Marrara Oval in 2005, Essendon did in 2007 and Adelaide followed suit in 2009 until inclement weather in the Top End had a proposed match against Richmond cancelled in 2011.

Richmond returned to the Territory in 2013, with the match held in Alice Springs before moving to Perth for the first time in 2015 against the West Coast Eagles.

A footnote must include the extraordinary circumstances behind the same squad that faced the Tigers in 2013 representing Australia in the International Rules series in Ireland.

For years a number of non-Indigenous players had pulled out of the International series in both Australia and Ireland and the AFL had enough. Selectors took a stance and named the best of Indigenous talent for its 2013 series - where the All-Stars lineup lost 2-0 against the Irish.