Adelaide Crows star Eddie Betts says the next challenge is to not lose indigenous talent

EDDIE Betts says player retention of indigenous talent is the next challenge for clubs, the AFL and the players from small communities.

Indigenous players Wayne Milera, Cam Ellis-Yolmen, Eddie Betts, Ben Davis and Curtly Hampton wearing the Crows 2018 Indigenous guernsey at Montefiore Hill. Picture: MATT TURNER

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ADELAIDE crowd favourite Eddie Betts has singled out indigenous player retention as a key issue on the eve of the AFL’s Sir Doug Nicholls Round — and an area in which he wants to contribute.

The celebration of indigenous talent this weekend highlights the fact that Aborigines are well represented in the game — around nine per cent of AFL players are indigenous even though the national population consists of around three per cent.

Eddie Betts chats with students from Kaurna Plains School at West Lakes this week/ Picture: Tricia Watkinson

But Betts said the next frontier was to make sure they had long and happy careers rather than seeing talented young indigenous leaving the game prematurely because of homesickness.

He is doing his bit: the Betts family holds weekly dinners for his indigenous teammates in a bid to make them feel comfortable in their new surroundings and become grounded in Adelaide.

“There are more and more indigenous players that are being drafted these days, which is fantastic,” Betts said on Adelaide radio station FIVEaa. “ But then you look at it — and that’s what I’m trying to stop — there are more and more indigenous players who just up and leave because they get homesick.

“There were a couple of kids from the Gold Coast and Hawthorn who went home with a couple of years left on their contracts.

“They just left.

“It’s hard to come from a small community and coming into the Big Smoke and trying to play footy.

“You miss home, you miss family because you grew up in that environment.

“But I’ve just got to tell everybody out there — the indigenous players especially — if you want to make it you’ve got to step out of your comfort zone and make the uncomfortable comfortable.

“That’s why my house is open and the boys are welcome there, because it’s like a home away from home to make them not really homesick.

“That’s what I love doing.”