AFL’s Sir Doug Nicholls Round sees celebrations across every aspect of the sport

The AFL’s Sir Doug Nicholls Round has seen the entire sport made over in the image of Indigenous Australia, delighting fans around the country.

Indigenous place names on the Footy Live ladder and Naarm's Kysaiah Pickett

The AFL’s annual Sir Doug Nicholls Round has seen a makeover for the sport as the league recognises and celebrates the contribution of its Indigenous players.

There are a litany of tributes planned ahead of the signature Dreamtime fixture on Saturday night between Richmond and Essendon, but most notable has been the trend of teams engaging with Indigenous language in a new way for the first time.

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While Melbourne have renamed themselves to Naarm (pronounced na-arm) for Sir Doug Nicholls Round since 2022, this year Port Adelaide followed suit and renamed themselves Yartapuulti (pronounced yarta–pole-tee), which resulted in the first match of the round seeing two teams using traditional Indigenous names play each other for the first time.

Naarm’s renaming has kicked off a trend across football and across codes, with Fremantle renaming themselves Walyalup (pronounced wul-yul-up) and the NRL’s Cronulla Sharks unveiling their new branding for the NRL’s own Indigenous Round as Kurranulla.

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The desire from fans to connect with the Indigenous heritage of their clubs has been seen beyond the AFL’s official channels as well, with popular third-party football coverage app Footy Live renaming each team on its ladder with the Indigenous name.

Social media lit up with praise for the move, with one fan calling it “quite beautiful”, and the Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Twitter account liking the photo.

FootyLive Indigenous place names replace AFL clubs. Photo: Supplied

Kysaiah Pickett of the Demons celebrates a goal during Indigenous Round. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)

It isn’t just renaming places where the AFL has taken lead on including Indigenous language as part of a recognition of the intrinsic nature of Indigenous culture to football clubs, but both Melbourne and Port Adelaide ran out to translated team songs at Adelaide Oval on Friday night, in scenes that evoked the Wallabies’ recent tradition of singing the national anthem in the local Indigenous language ahead of Tests around NAIDOC Week.

Fans loved the change-up, with one football fan saying he’d be happy to do it every week.

“Really like what Port Adelaide and Melbourne did with the club songs being sung by Indigenous people,” they said.

“I would be happy if that happened for every match going forward (Traditional & Indigenous version every AFL match).”

Essendon and Richmond players ahead of the 2023 Dreamtime at the ‘G. Pic: Michael Klein

Most teams have also had special painted boots in honour of the round to go alongside special jerseys.

All AFL teams (bar Sydney) have created new Indigenous jumpers for this year’s Round, and the reveals of these designs are typically a highlight of the AFL calendar.

Typically, these jumpers provide an opportunity for community involvement on a deeper level than what the AFL typically does, with the Essendon jumper for the Dreamtime clash designed by students at Thornbury Primary, and other teams typically opting to allow Indigenous players and their families to design the jumper.

Originally published as AFL’s Sir Doug Nicholls Round sees celebrations across every aspect of the sport