Despite being acutely disadvantaged in comparison to non-Indigenous Australians, Indigenous Australians punch well above their weight in sport and particularly in Australian football and rugby league. Although only comprising 3 per cent of the Australian population, they account for between 10 per cent and 14 per cent of the elite player population in the | NRL (National Rugby League) and the AFL (Australian Football League) (Harvey and Halloran 2010; Sheedy 2010a, b). Approximately 22 per cent of players in the annual rugby league State of Origin series (NSW Vs Qld) are Indigenous with one-third of the Queensland team typically Indigenous. As we outline in more detail in the following chapter, sport has long had an important place in Indigenous Australian culture but access to elite-level sport for them is a comparatively recent development. Rugby league was first played in Australia in 1908 but it was not until 1960 that Lionel Morgan ran on the field as the first Aboriginal to play for the Australian national team to be greeted with boos and pelted with objects by spectators. Over half a century later, the participation of Indigenous players in rugby league and Australian football at their most elite levels is significant enough for the annual promotion of âAll Starâ games between Indigenous and non-Indigenous players, leading into the respective playing seasons.
Indigenous players are not only very visible in the AFL and NRL due to their numbers but also due to what is seen to be a distinctively Indigenous approach to play that is commonly described as being intuitive, creative and free flowing with Indigenous players displaying superb skills, anticipation, awareness and a remarkable sense of the game that escapes most non-Indigenous players (see Hallinan and Judd 2007). In AFL this reflects what Butcher and Judd (2016) describe as an Aboriginal âfootball ethicâ that is evident in weekend gatherings in central and northern Australia where the role that culture plays in the development of an Aboriginal is also evident. These important cultural events in central and northern Australia celebrate sport, culture and community with an approach to play that, âstresses attack in a style that is characterized by high-speed running quick scoring and minimal body contactâ and one in which, âgiving expression to the game is given priority over any desire to winâ (p. 173).
The rugby league All Stars pre-season game is a highly anticipated event between two reasonably evenly matched teams but with the Indigenous team being dominant over recent years. The Indigenous All Stars had an emphatic win in 2013 with the Festival of Indigenous Rugby League programme replacing the All Stars game in 2014 because this was the year following the Rugby League World Cup. In 2015, the Indigenous All Stars defeated the NRL (non-Indigenous) All Stars 20â6. A World All Stars team narrowly defeated the Indigenous All Stars 12â8 but in February 2017 the Indigenous All Stars overpowered the World All Stars team to earn a convincing 34â8 victory. In the same sport, up to 35 per cent of players in the Australian national rugby league team (the Kangaroos) are Indigenous (Evans et al. 2015) with this figure rising up to 46 per cent of players in the Australian run on side for the 2015 ANZAC day test match. The presence and influence of Indigenous players is very evident in both sports. So is their distinctive way of playing.
In Australian sport , it is widely accepted that Indigenous Australians bring something special to the NRL and AFL and display outstanding skill, knowledge, ability and a sense of the game but little research has been conducted on how this expertise is developed. Most commonly, this aptitude to rugby league and Australian football and subsequent over-representation in the AFL and NRL is simplistically explained as being racially inherited ânatural talentâ. While there is likely to be some genetic influence, this is a simplistic and inadequate explanation that has been widely criticized (see Adair and Stronach 2011). A tempting alternative explanation might lie in the body of work on the broader development of sporting expertise in sport but its lack of attention to culture limits its ability to explain the success of Indigenous Australians at the highest levels of two major Australian sports and how this distinctive style of play is developed.
Natural Athletes?
As Adair and Stronach (2011) suggest, the concept of the ânaturalâ Aboriginal athlete as a biological, genetic and âracialâ explanation for innate sporting acumen is pervasive in popular culture, whether in Australia, the USA or elsewhere. In Australia, this belief in Indigenous athletic ability being genetically inherited is not only uncritically accepted among non-Indigenous Australians but also among Indigenous Australians. Described by Godwell (2000) as âfolkloric theoryâ, it encourages belief in the existence of an innate athletic ability in Aboriginals as a simplistic explanation for their success in sport that ignores their efforts in developing their talent as a process of learning and the influence of Aboriginal culture.
Racial inheritance explanations of sporting success are not limited to male Indigenous athletes. Indigenous females also accept this explanation of their success in sport as being naturally occurring as well as accepting that characteristics of performance in sport such as being instinctive, magical, inventive and having a âsixth senseâ are also genetically passed on (Stronach et al. 2016; Hallinan and Judd 2007). While there are likely to be genetically inherited capacities that provide some advantage for Indigenous Australians in rugby league and Australian football (and other sports), this view of the natural athlete is too simplistic and dismissive of individual contributions to the development of expertise in sport and the influence of socio-cultural contexts . It fails to recognize the lifetimes of learning and the contributions of other people involved in these playersâ development into elite-level sportsmen. It also fails to recognize the role that Aboriginal culture plays in this process and the meaning and value of sport in Indigenous communities (Butcher and Judd 2016; Light and Evans 2015, 2017).
Developing Expertise
Not only is recognition of the ways in which cultural context shapes and influences the development of sporting expertise lacking in research on Indigenous sport but also in sport more broadly. This is not to say that it is ignored because the last few decades have seen increasing consideration of how social and cultural contexts shape the development of sporting expertise but knowledge in the biophysical sciences in sport continues to dominate thinking about how expertise is developed. Recent explanations of expertise and performance in sport, in general, recognize and account for the interaction of genetics, environment and experience over time. As CĂŽtĂ© et al. (2007) suggest understanding how expertise is developed in sport involves determining, âthe relative contribution of genetic and environmental/experiential factors to high-level human achievement/work that has emanated largely from the nature/nurture distinction first proposed by Sir Francis Galtonâ (p. 184). Genetic inheritance may play a significant role in the development of expertise in Indigenous athletes but, as research suggests across a range of cultural settings , the experience that they have from an early age, âis enormously influential in determining to what degree individual potential is realised and expertise attainedâ (CĂŽtĂ© et al. 2007, p. 184). Genetically inherited talent, capabilities or physical attributes alone are unlikely to take anyone to the most elite levels of their sport. Some work on the development of expertise in sport identifies how genetically inherited abilities and capacities are complemented by experience, formal practice and socio-cultural contexts but it is not merely the quantity of practice that is important as is suggested by the notion that 10,000 hours of practice is required to become an expert performer (see Ericsson and Charmness 1994).
The reductionist contention that 10,000 hours of practice is required to become an expert performer refers to deliberate practice that is high in effort, low in inherent enjoyment and designed to purposefully address areas of weakness (Ericsson and Charmness 1994). Recent developments within the motor learning field have led to a more inclusive notion of what constitutes practice and consideration of the breadth of experience that contributes to the development of expertise, which is evident in recognition of the development that arises from participation in âdeliberate playâ, as play-like, loosely structured activities. The term deliberate play refers to activities that are fun, enjoyable, engaging and which promote intrinsic motivation . Deliberate play includes the informal pickup games often played in the local neighbourhood or after school and usually as small-sided games with peer designed rules and managed by the players. While they are not designed or played with any specific intent for performance improvement, they make a significant contribution to the development of expertise and particularly in regard to improving perceptual capacities and decision-making (Berry et al. 2008).
Some studies on the development of expertise have identified how expert decision-makers in elite-level team sports such as Australian football invest more time in deliberate play than in structured practice (see Berry and Abernathy 2003). Motor learning theory recognizes how deliberate play contributes to the development of performance but it is seen to be less important than de...
