Marn Grook at the SCG will kick off Sir Doug Nicholls Indigenous round on Friday night when the Sydney Swans take on Collingwood in an all-important match.
Please see key details below in relation to Friday night's match.
Key timings
5:50pm – SCG gates open
5.50pm - Driver Avenue activites to take part in including indigenous art activation, Volkswagen Fan Zone, QBE Fabric of the Swans station, Sydney Swans Fan Zone and Merchandise.
7.20pm - Smoking Ceremony and Welcome to Country
7.36pm - Collingwood enter arena
7.39pm - Sydney Swans enter arena
7.48pm - Coin Toss and Gift Exchange
7.49pm - Didgeridoo playing during 60 second countdown
7.50pm - Game commences
Half Time - 'Everyday My Mother's Voice' by Paul Kelly and Dan Sultan played throughout SCG
Post match - Presentation of Marn Grook Trophy and Goodes-O'Loughlin Medal
What is Marn Grook?
At the annual Indigenous Round, the Swans battle will again compete for the Marn Grook trophy.
Marn Grook honours the Indigenous roots of Australian football and recognises the valuable contribution of Indigenous players to the game.
The meaning of Marn Grook translates to 'Game Ball ‘. It is also believed to be the name given to a traditional game played during a corroboree of the Djawurrung and Jardwadjali clans in Victoria’s west.
Marn Grook was played with a ball made from possum skin, about the size of an orange, filled with pounded charcoal and/or grass and was bound into a hard ball with Kangaroo sinews and then kicked and tossed by two opposing teams of up to 50 players.
It is believed Marn Grook is one of the inspirations behind Australian Football as we know it today and played a key role in its development today.
Goodes O’Loughlin Medal
The Goodes-O’Loughlin Medal will be awarded to the player judged best on ground in the Sydney Swans’ Marn Grook match. This will be voted on by representatives of the media.
Adam Goodes retired in 2015 after 372 games in the red and white. His much-decorated career includes two Brownlow Medals, two AFL premierships (2005 and 2012), three Bob Skilton Medals, the 1999 AFL Rising Star Award, being named in the Indigenous Team of the Century and four All Australian accolades. In 2014 Goodes was named Australian of the Year.
Michael O’Loughlin played 303 games at the Swans from 1995-2009. A member of the Swans’ 2005 premiership team, O’Loughlin won the Swans’ best and fairest award in 1998, is a dual All-Australian and was named in the Indigenous Team of the Century. In 2015, he was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Most recently O’Loughlin was the coach of the QBE Sydney Swans Academy.
Both Goodes and O’Loughlin have worked to stamp out racism and advocate for Indigenous youth through the Goodes-O’Loughlin (GO) Foundation.
The design of the medal incorporates the specially designed Indigenous Round Guernsey pattern designed by Adam Goodes’ mother, Lisa Sansbury.
GO Foundation
Integrity. Equality. Opportunity. Strength in culture.
The GO Foundation was founded by Sydney Swans Legends, Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin. As proud Aboriginal men, their names are synonymous with integrity, equality and opportunity.
Although Australia is a land of abundant wealth, many Indigenous Australians face a lack of opportunity and access. The GO Foundation provides scholarships to Indigenous students from kindergarten through to university, in public and independent schools, to students who live with family, in community and on country. Through a GO scholarship, our students access the resources and support they need to ensure their journey through school is as rewarding as possible.
With their scholarship funds, our students can cover their educational needs, including lap tops, wi-fi access at home, sporting equipment, musical instruments, excursions and school trips, and food at the canteen. The GO scholarship is the entry point to the GO Ecosystem, a model of collaborative impact where our partners work with us to open door and provide GO students with a broad range of opportunities.
Sydney Swans Indigenous Guernsey
This new Marn Grook Guernsey tells the story of the black swan, as inspired by the work of NSW artist Cheryl Davidson. See the story of the Black Swan - Guunya below;
In the dreamtime lived a beautiful white swan. It was graceful and elegant and had beautiful white feathers, amongst all the birds the swan was the most beautiful. We call him Guunyu. He lived in the waterways of lakes and billabongs.
Guunyu was a humble, quiet bird and mostly stuck to himself. Guunyu’s nest was a huge mound made from rush and sedge grass. All the other water birds where small and their feathers did not stand out like Guunyu beautiful white feathers. In our laws and customs, it’s not good to talk about yourself or praise yourself up and Guunyu never did, always bowing his head and going quietly about his business.
One day as Guunyu swam to a place where all the birds congregated to feed on weed and food at the bottom of the lake, he felt every bird staring at him. Some birds got in Guunyu way and tried to stop him from eating all the food at the shallow end of the lake. They said go out deeper and eat because your neck can reach the weed in the deeper end of the lake and, so he did.
When the birds saw that Guunyu was eating good weed from out the deep end they got jealous of him and all the birds had started to begrudge Guunyu for that. They began to whisper to each other their nasty thoughts. They began to talk out loudly so that Guunyu could hear, “look at Guunyu, who does he think he is. He thinks he’s better than all of us they started to say. Guunyu wasn’t worried about what they were saying and just swam past with his head bowed without saying a word.
That evening when all the birds roost in amongst the reeds they began to talk about Guunyu and plot against him. They were so nasty and jealous they wanted him out of their waterways, so they plan to kill Guunyu. The whole time the birds were talking the old black crow sat in the treetops above them listening and shaking his head in shame. He had seen and heard a lot over the years, but this was the worst.
The next day on his way to get some more of the good weed to eat two water fowls came to Guunyu and said come over closer to the long reeds Guunyu, the weed here is nice and juicy. So Guunyu happily followed thinking he was going to get a good feed but when he got there all the birds of the waterway jumped out of the long reeds and started to attack Guunyu. They scratched his beak and pulled out his beautiful white feathers, all Guunyu could do was curl up, tuck his wings in and hope for the birds to stop.
While this was happening, the old black crow sat in the tree tops, because there was so many birds attacking Guunyu all the crow could do was watch on, until they had beaten Guunyu up so much and pulled out every feather he just lay in the long reeds and die.
When the birds had finished attacking Guunyu and everything went quiet the crow swooped down to see if Guunyu was still alive. Seeing that Guunyu was still breathing the crow stared to comfort Guunyu and told him he would help him recover.
The crow started to wipe away all of the blood from Guunyu naked body. All the while telling him it was all going to be ok. When the crow tried to wipe away the blood from Guunyu beak he could not take away the red stain from the blood. The only part of the beak that remained white was a stripe across his beak where a single feather had lay when Guunyu tried to protect himself. Next the crow had seen Guunyu had no feathers and knew he would surely freeze to death if he did not have any feathers to keep him warm. So slowly the crow started to pull out some of his own feathers to share with Guunyu. When he had finished Guunyu was able to rise up out of the swamp and fly away with his beautiful new shiny black feathers that the old crow had given him. He was more beautiful than ever before.
Today when you see Guunyu flying above you can see that his wing feathers are white underneath where he had tucked his wings in when the birds attacked him. They could not pluck out those feathers because Guunyu had tucked his wings in very tightly. His beak is still red and stained, and he is still beautiful and graceful and humble as well.
