The AFL's recent remarks regarding attracting more First Nations players to the code's top level have drawn strong responses from two of South Australia's most influential football figures in recent times.

Ex-Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley and Adelaide's dual premiership captain Mark Bickley shared a discussion on AFL Nation radio over the numbers falling out of the game.

Indigenous players on club lists have slowly declined since 2020.

Playing numbers have continued to shrink further each season from a peak-high 87 in 2020 to 83 in 2021, 81 in 2022, 77 in 2023, 71 in 2024, 63 to in 2025 to the current list of 62 players - the lowest Indigenous representation since 58 players appeared in 2006.

The AFL has now set a new blueprint for increasing the amount of Indigenous players upwards of 10 per cent by 2030 amid a proposal of incentives for clubs to recruit more First Nations talent.

"We will work with clubs to better understand what other incentives will be meaningful and aligned to (key performance indicators) KPIs," AFL general manager of First Nations strategy and engagement Taryn Lee told media outlets last week.

AFL clubs drafted nine new Aboriginal players but lost more to retirement during the post-season.

While the decline was not based around axing players, there has been a lack of progression on growing the talent over successive drafts that continue to cause real concern to the AFL.

However, data from community football clubs outside the elite competitions indicate that Indigenous participation across Australia has increased from 33,573 players in 2023 to 42,738 in 2025 playing Australian Rules football.

Hinkley, who was Port's longest-serving AFL mentor, said that most clubs must do a better job of facilitating a culturally appropriate environment.

This comes after the AFL has encouraged individual clubs to employ their own First Nations officers throughout the past decade.

"It's about a complete lack of understanding of what it takes to look after a First Nations player," Hinkley said.

"I'm really passionate about that."

Hinkley coached 15 Indigenous senior players during his time at the helm of the Power from 2013 until the end of 2025.

The 58-year-old former Fitzroy and Geelong player wants more clubs to take a more caring approach.

"I had a player - Willie Rioli - who in the last two to three years caused himself some problems, but the treatment that he used to get and some of the lack of understanding that some people have around the cultural (side of things), the pieces that come with that, they need care and they need protection," Hinkley said, adding it was important to make an effort to ensure Indigenous players "don't feel like they are on their own and lost".

"That is the biggest problem - (Indigenous players) feel like they, unfortunately, are still treated different in our game and that is so, so sad when we look at it like that."

Port Adelaide delivered a strong media statement last year on Rioli, reminding the AFL it could "do more to seek to understand daily challenges that our First Nations and multicultural players, and our staff, live with on a daily basis"

The club at the time wrote to the AFL that Rioli had been on the receiving end of racist remarks on several occasions in the 2025 season. The Club noted that the suggestion pushed by some that Rioli had "provoked" antagonism was "deeply problematic".

Rioli's troubles also involved a suspension related to marijuana use, a social media post directed at Hawthorn over racism his father Willie Snr allegedly endured at the club, and privately messaging threats to players from the Western Bulldogs, Fremantle and Essendon.

Bickley, whose playing days ended in 2003, talked of how another Indigenous star of the game exited Adelaide before the ex-Crows assistant coach returned to the club a decade later in the role of a new engagement officer.

Tyson Stengle had left the Crows early in 2021 after a series of disciplinary issues that lead to the club and player agreeing to part ways.

The cousin of Eddie Betts later signed with Geelong at the end of that year as a delisted free agent, kicking 50 goals in the Cats' 2022 premiership season.

"I think the most stark example for me is when Tyson Stengle was at Adelaide and he was just battling and floundering a little bit in terms of everything trying to make it all work," Bickley said.

"He went to Geelong where Eddie Betts was involved and he was much closer to him, doing lots of work (and) you saw the results that they were able to get.

"Once again, I am very far away from it, so I am not sure what has happened more recently with Tyson, but that is a stark contrast with someone who feels like they've got into an environment where they can really flourish."