This is a scenario of which the game’s head office was warned back in the depths of COVID-19, when a panel of club-representing football heavyweights, including John Longmire, Adam Simpson and Richmond’s Blair Hartley, told AFL bosses they were cutting too deep. That high-maintenance young footballers from tough backgrounds simply could not thrive or even survive in the system with the seven-figure cuts to football department spending.

Loading

Not to mention savage cuts to programs such as the Flying Boomerangs, the Talent League for under-18s and pathway programs across the competition. That funding has never returned to pre-pandemic levels, and where Richmond were concerned, the club says it lacked the resources to support footballers such as Sydney Stack and Derek Eggmolesse-Smith, a scenario common with every club contacted by this masthead.

The only other Richmond footballer at the club who identifies as Aboriginal is Rhyan Mansell, who is serving the third of a three-match suspension. Bolton has moved on to Fremantle and Marlion Pickett has retired, although his wife Jess has been professionally engaged by the club. Daniel Rioli and his on-field flair is proving one key difference at the undefeated Suns in 2025 and Richmond’s most decorated Indigenous on-field leader and Indigenous games record-holder Shane Edwards (303 games) is working as a recruiter for the Crows.

Early this season, almost a decade since “Choco” Williams – widely regarded as a key pioneering coach of Indigenous talent – gave that blunt but simple message to Gale, former AFL Indigenous boss Jason Mifsud, now chairing the AFL Players Association’s Indigenous advisory board, visited Tigerland.

Another Richmond boss – Hartley – asked a different but equally despondent question of Mifsud, also a former St Kilda player and assistant coach, regarding the dearth of Indigenous playing talent. Football talent boss Hartley, like Hardwick, remains passionate regarding the benefits of a strong Indigenous culture within a football club, not to mention the benefits for a team’s performance.

Hartley lamented that the club was struggling to cut through with AFL bosses regarding the poor performance of the game’s Indigenous pathways. Only two Aboriginal players, for example, played in the South Australian under-16 competition last year, and the dearth of footballers coming through the once-rich West Australian pathways remains an even bigger concern.

“What can we do?” Hartley demanded of Mifsud. “You can’t pick Aboriginal kids if they’re not in the draft.”

Next week, the AFL will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first Collingwood-Essendon Anzac Day game, a match notable for the incident in which Damian Monkhorst racially abused Michael Long. That led to the AFL regulating against on-field racial vilification with the ground-breaking introduction of the Peek Rule.

Less than a season after Daniel Rioli was drafted to Richmond, the AFL employed prominent Indigenous advocate Tanya Hosch as its first Aboriginal executive and three years later Helen Milroy was installed as the game’s first Indigenous commissioner. More than half the clubs now have an Indigenous director on their boards.

Yet while the AFL’s Indigenous staff numbers have significantly increased, the on-field story tells an alarming tale in the reverse. Two years after CEO-elect Andrew Dillon vowed to review the role of next generation academies and their role in developing Indigenous pathways, the playing numbers have continued to fall.

And still the game, despite financial incentives, cannot attract Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander coaches. Xavier Clarke, who departed Richmond for North Melbourne in 2024, is the only Indigenous coach among the 18 clubs.

In 2020, the year that development programs fall by the wayside, 95 young Indigenous men were playing in the AFL. That number has fallen annually and now sits at 63 with just two Indigenous players – Malakai Champion (West Coast) and Cody Anderson (Hawthorn) – picked at the last national draft.

With six Indigenous players, Daniel Rioli’s Gold Coast sits at the upper end of AFL clubs, but significantly, since the Suns lost Darwin as a recruiting zone two years ago, no players have been drafted from the NT capital.

Loading

The Indigenous All-Stars game was resurrected in February this year after a decade in the wilderness, and despite running at a financial loss, the popular exhibition clash against Fremantle was an attendance and ratings winner, with a significant turn-up of talent. Most important was the positive response from the players who took part.

Although Hosch and Paul Vandenbergh – the AFL Indigenous leader who like Hosch is based in South Australia – are pushing for the All-Stars to return every second year, head office has yet to commit.

Maurice Rioli jnr, while disappointed by Daniel’s departure and that of Bolton, has committed to the club until the end of 2026. He spent time back in Darwin over summer and returned there for the AFLW All-Stars game. After battling fitness and a slow start to the season, he returned to the senior team during Gather Round.

His cousin Willie Rioli’s since-removed Instagram post in the early hours of last Monday underline the depth of unresolved conversations regarding the game’s racist past – despite financial and legal settlements – not to mention the black and white divisions that have haunted the game.

But those divisions have always been there. What has fallen away dramatically is the infrastructure and support network from head office and across the competition to ensure Indigenous talent remains nurtured and treasured.

Instead, there is prevaricating from the game’s governors to allocate resources and take the appropriate action to stem the bleeding.

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter.