This Sunday afternoon, the Sydney Swans will face Carlton in Marn Grook at the SCG.

Sunday's Marn Grook match, as part of Sir Doug Nicholls round is always a highlight on the Sydney Swans calendar and is a chance to celebrate and recognise the contribution of Indigenous players to the game.

As we head into the clash, we profile a key figure in our history.

Elkin Reilly was our very first Indigenous player and the first of 19 Indigenous players known to have played for the Swans. Click here to view all their profiles before reading Reilly’s story below.

Elkin Reilly – Player #859 and our first Indigenous player

Elkin Reilly was a member of the Stolen Generation. Born in about 1939 at Alpurrurulam on the Queensland/NT border, 600km east of Tennant Creek, he was taken from his mother soon after.

Severely under-nourished, he was considered not well enough and too young to be put in with other children at Alice Springs Hospital. Instead he was taken in and later adopted by a local doctor, finally moving to Adelaide after a time living in the outback.

Speaking 76 years later, ahead of Indigenous Round 2015, Reilly said: “I have never been back. There is a bit of a vacuum there but obviously I was too young to remember all that so it’s hard to feel any attachment.

“I’m just annoyed because I never met my mother or father… just a few relatives. As far as I know I only had the one brother but he died in a car smash. I have been to his gravesite but that’s about it,” he said.

From this sad beginning came a key figure in the South Melbourne/Sydney Swans history. He was the club’s first Indigenous player.

Player #859 on the all-time list of 1438, Reilly played 51 games from 1962-66 in the #35 red and white guernsey. Renowned for his competitiveness, Reilly was an under-sized ruckman who at times shared a wonderful partnership with Bob Skilton in an era of limited success for the club.

He died on 3 September 2020 aged 80 but he will forever hold a special place in club history after a remarkable journey from the NT outback via Adelaide to Lake Oval in South Melbourne that was so fortuitously told only five years before his death.

His adoption by Dr Pat Reilly and his wife Betty ensured a comfortable upbringing and a life-changing education at Rostrevor College, a prestigious independent boys school of about 850 students in suburban Woodforde, about 11km from Adelaide Oval.

After Reilly left the school in 1956 his adoptive father contacted NT authorities on his behalf to help trace his biological family. He was presented with a Statutory Declaration, signed in 1957, which gave him some information on the first six months of his life.

He was told he was born in 1938 to “Ruby and Harvey” on Lake Nash Station. At six months he was taken from his mother with his older brother. His brother was reportedly taken to the Telegraph Station which was the halfway house for the 'stolen children'. His cousins were also taken.

After being taken in by Dr Reilly and his wife, the younger of the brothers was baptised Julian Elkin Reilly. It is suggested this may have been on 2 April 1939, which is officially listed as his date of birth.

The name Elkin was taken from a leading anthropologist of the time who was known to the Reilly's, and became the Reilly's preferred name for their boy.

According to an historical reflection in the 2000 Rostrevor Magazine, he was hugely popular at school. It said: “Elkin Reilly ('56) is an unassuming, modest man whose lifetime's experiences belie his quiet and placid nature. He is a man who has survived the rigours of VFL football in the rugged sixties and the emotional rigour of coming to terms with his cultural identity. He is a man who speaks with a great deal of pride of his adoptive family and the College that he called home for 6 years.

Rostrevor was also the nursery of 223-game Swans premiership player and Hall of Famer turned Academy coach Jared Crouch among a host of AFL players.

So much was Reilly admired that still today the school offers a scholarship for Indigenous students and has a hall named in his honour.

It was at Rostrevor College that Reilly found his love of football. As he explained: “I was no good academically, but sport gave me confidence, made me feel accepted and was one of the main things that pulled me through life.”

Called up for national service in 1958, he served three months at Woodside in the Adelaide Hills before returning to the family home at Minlaton, a small town on the Yorke Peninsula.

He persisted with football and played for country clubs in SA, winning the League medal with Minlaton in the Southern Yorke Peninsula League in 1959 and with Barmera-Monash in the Upper Murray Riverland League in 1960.

But it was a brief 1961 stint with Wentworth in the Sunraysia League of south-west NSW where he caught the eye of three Melbourne-based recruiters.

“I received an offer from Essendon who were the top team at the time,” Reilly detailed. “I worked it out pretty quickly I was never getting a game because Geoff Leek was the gun ruckman at the time. Then Richmond came along but the top ruckmen there were Neville Crowe and Mike Patterson. They were just starting to blossom.

“South Melbourne also happened to be there and I said to myself 'I have a chance here' as Jim Taylor was the number one ruckman and he was just about to retire so I went down to give it a crack.”

He debuted aged 23 in Round 5, 1962 against Fitzroy at Lake Oval under coach Noel McMahen and captain Skilton but spent the first three quarters on the bench in a loss.

“I realised during my first game I’d have to lift my tempo," he explained later, having had to wait until Round 8 against Geelong at Kardinia Park for another chance.

It was the 100^th game for Hugh McLaughlin Jnr, son of 1933 Swans premiership player Hugh McLaughlin Snr, and Reilly did exactly that. He played a full game on Geelong captain John Yeates, father of Geelong player Mark Yeates who famously cleaned up Hawthorn’s Dermott Brereton at the first bounce in the 1989 Grand Final. Reilly held his spot for the rest of the ’62 season and grew a huge affection for Skilton, who won the second of his three Brownlow Medal in 1963.

“Bob always knew where the ball was going,” Reilly recalled. “He was one of the few rovers who could collect the ball in one stride and be out of reach in the next, before anyone knew what hit them. He was the greatest player I have ever seen and I’m honoured to have contributed in one way or another to his career.”

Reilly played his 51^st and last game under captain-coach Skilton in Round 17 1966. It was a one-point loss at Lake Oval to a Richmond side in their first season under a 35-year-old Tom Hafey, who would later finish his illustrious coaching career with Sydney in 1986-87-88.

He ruptured his appendix ahead of the 1967 season and despite his brave efforts never played again.

Having revealed that he was once subjected to racial vilification while playing, Reilly told how the people at South made it much easier for him. “They made me feel comfortable and not threatened which was a big thing back in those days. They made me feel wanted,” he said.