I was very lucky to have fantastic leaders before me in Paul Kelly, Leo Barry, Brett Kirk, Craig Bolton, Mick O'Loughlin and Stuart Maxfield, and all of those players led in completely different ways.
I was very lucky to have fantastic leaders before me in Paul Kelly, Leo Barry, Brett Kirk, Craig Bolton, Mick O'Loughlin and Stuart Maxfield, and all of those players led in completely different ways.
The support of my mother has made such a difference in my life, sacrificing everything to make sure that we went to school, did our homework, got an education. That was one person supporting me, and it takes more than one person in our community to help raise our children.
I just figured that, for me to get the best out of myself and do the right thing by myself, I really just needed to step away and find out what I really wanted to do and hopefully getting back to where my people are from and getting out bush could really re-energise me and help heal those wounds.
If people have got a problem with me, say it to me. If you're going to hurt my feelings, I'm going to point you out.
For me it's about supporting our Indigenous kids and completing that whole journey: early childhood, primary school, high school, university and then career. I want to be a part of that process all the way, wearing lots of different hats.
I play over-35s soccer on the weekend to get my fix of running into people and crashing and bashing, and I still have that desire to win in the sport that I play. I don't think that'll ever lose me.
What I've seen, and the reactions from 'The Final Quarter' and 'The Australian Dream', is that a lot more people are more willing to share their stories around racism.
There's nothing, today, that excites me, or that makes me think I would like to be back in AFL circles. I have no interest. No interest whatsoever. My love for the game died inside of me in those final years of me playing.
If I'm only defined by my sport, I really have failed. Yes, I've opened myself up for more criticism, but I'm a professional athlete. I get criticised every week. I'm used to it. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, but you get used to it.
Yes, we do need better representation, but I'm a big believer that we also need to talk about the Uluru Statement of the Heart. We need all of Australia to understand what it was, and is, and what that movement is about.
At the end of the day, it's my choice to do the lap. At the end of the day, it was my choice not to be nominated for the Madden medal. I had my last football responsibility as the club Best and Fairest and that's what I was looking for.
Whenever I had been racially vilified before it had been by peers or drunk men. It's more shocking when it's a 13-year-old child. No 13-year-old is racist.
Yeah you just have to be true to yourself, know where you come from, make sure that your relationships with family members back in country, back home, are really strong so that connection is always there.
The support of my mother has made such a difference in my life, sacrificing everything to make sure that we went to school, did our homework, got an education. That was one person supporting me, and it takes more than one person in our community to help raise our children.
You need to understand how you lead, and in my case it is through my actions and the way I bring others into the game and also how I am able to form relationships. I am somebody who can earn people's trust, and that's crucial to how I try to lead the team.
As a kid we moved around a fair bit as a family. It was difficult to make friends but sport helped. Once people saw you kick a football it broke down barriers. Instead of being the new skinny black kid you were the kid everyone wanted on their team.