Martin Frederick: Port Adelaide defender’s incredible journey to AFL debut
They may not be teammates but when they play well, the group chat lights up. Get the inside story on the special bond between these young guns.
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As the final siren sounds two players of South Sudanese heritage embrace in the middle of the oval.
It was a moment that has shown how far the game and players from their community have come.
On Sunday night at Adelaide Oval it was debutant Marty Frederick and Aliir Aliir, celebrating Port Adelaide’s dominant win over St Kilda — and the first time in the AFL two players of South Sudanese heritage had played together.
“It means everything to me,” Frederick said of his debut.
“I can’t describe how it felt but it was very special for me and my family.”
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Over 1200 kilometres away, another player who fled what is now South Sudan continued his stunning rise this year just hours earlier.
Changkuoth Jiath is not only a spark of hope for a rebuilding Hawthorn in 2021, he is also inspiring the newest member of the AFL’s African contingent.
“Whenever someone plays well we pump them up and get around them,” Frederick said of the group chat present and past African AFL-listed players have.
“Recently it has mainly been CJ, Aliir and even Michael (Frederick’s twin brother who plays for Fremantle) so it’s a really good group to have and a support network as well
“Probably more CJ this year has inspired me. Similar positions, both running defenders and seeing what he has been doing this year has made go geez I think I can do that as well.
“So watching him every week has been really good for me and there’s some other boys on AFL lists that are training and playing well in the reserves as well.”
Frederick, Aliir and Jiath are among a growing contingent of AFL players who were either born in East Africa or parents came to Australia from there.
Majak Daw, now at Melbourne, was the first player from the Sudan to be drafted by an AFL club when he joined North Melbourne in 2009.
Now there are Allir and Frederick at Port Adelaide, Michael at Fremantle, Mabior Chol, Bigoa Nyuon and AFLW player Akec Makur Chuot at Richmond, Essendon’s Tom Jok and the Western Bulldogs’ Buku Khamis – who is getting close to his debut for Luke Beveridge’s side – that were either born in Sudan or South Sudan or their parents are from the area.
Jiath’s parents walked a week and a half to Ethiopia – where he was born in a refugee camp – to escape the perils of civil war, ethnic cleansing and political turmoil in what is now South Sudan.
Former AFL listed players Reuben William (Brisbane), Gach Nyuon (Essendon), Tarir Bayok and Tony Olango (West Coast) all either hail from or have Sudan/South Sudan heritage.
On the opposite side of Africa Collingwood’s running defender Isaac Quaynor’s father is from Ghana while the Pies also are exploring the prospect of recruiting 18-year-old Senegalese basketballer Bassirou Faye who is hoping to return from Africa once visa constraints are overcome.
Paul Vandenbergh, Diversity Talent Manager at the AFL, said Daw had shown the way.
“You have to take your hat off to some one like Majak Daw who has really laid the foundation and given people of those backgrounds the confidence to go into our sport which probably they were traditionally into soccer and basketball,” he said.
“That’s probably our challenge now, without taking too much away from other sport, but that’s probably my goal now – how do we create better pathways for people of Sudanese background or multicultural background to come into our industry.
“Whether it is the second-tier competition, into our academies, into our programs and we’ve seen some of the impact some of our diversity programs have had with people like CJ who were picked up in our programs and is now just flourishing at Hawthorn.”
FREDERICK’S FIRST EXPERIENCE OF FOOTBALL
In the lead-up to Frederick’s debut for Port Adelaide against the Saints on Anzac Day, Power coach Ken Hinkley revealed the first time he and his twin brother Michael – who has played 15 games for Fremantle – encountered footy was when a football landed in their Blair Athol backyard.
“I don’t remember exactly, maybe five or six, around that age,” Frederick said.
“But yeah, an amazing coincidence. We were all soccer until then and all of a sudden there was this strange ball that we had never seen.
“But we started kicking it around and started to learn about it even more.”
Born in Adelaide, Frederick’s first interaction with a footy was part of what he told his Port Adelaide teammates as part of Power players telling deeply personal stories in front of the entire squad and coaches to build connection and trust.
What he also told his fellow players and coaches was the sacrifice his mother Helen made to raise him and Michael in Blair Athol, then Mansfield Park, after their father left when they were one.
“They came over in 1998, I think there was a civil war in the country so they had to flee that,” Frederick said.
“It was just our upbringing (what he told the players) and what we had to go through, the stuff we had to go through which was pretty difficult.
“I spoke about mum being the biggest support and our rock in our lives, she did everything she could to make sure we were all good.
“When she first came over to Australia she was enrolled in a language school to learn the language and how to read and write.
“But it was hard for her to do that so she had to give that up and raise us on her own.”
Last Sunday Helen, along with Frederick’s girlfriend, was in the Port Adelaide rooms to see him presented with his guernsey by his idol growing up David Rodan.
Because of the sacrifices she made, Helen didn’t get too many chances to see Frederick play in his junior days – for school CBC, local club Portland, Port’s Next Generation Academy, Woodville-West Torrens’ Under 18 and the SA Under 18 side.
“She was just at home doing whatever she could to help us,” he said.
“Making sure we had food and stuff like that.
“She has been huge. Without her who knows where would be and what we would be doing.
“I think we get our strong work ethic from here, head down and being polite as well. We just get everything from her.”
Helen hasn’t been to back to South Sudan since her mum died in 2012, with getting her back to see family a priority for Marty and Michael – although COVID has pushed this back somewhat.
HOW FREDERICK’S LOVE FOR FOOTY WAS FOSTERED
Despite not knowing too much about the game at first, this wasn’t a barrier to Frederick getting into footy.
“Nah not really a struggle (getting into the game),” he said.
“I had mates playing at school so that’s where I started off, playing school footy for a few years. Then I had mates saying I should play club footy and that’s where it went from there.”
Vandenberg said making it as easy as possible for people of multicultural backgrounds to play the game was key.
“I think our challenge is how do we steer them towards Australian football rather than the sports they traditionally gravitate to,” he said.
“Yeah definitely (junior level pathways are key) also the other parts around equipping leagues and clubs with the right supports to create a safe environment for them to flourish as well.
“Just putting in steps or ideas to create a safe environment for people from multicultural or Indigenous backgrounds, which is a challenge.”
Frederick joined Port Adelaide’s Next Generation Academy when he was 16, around five or six years after he started playing footy with his mates.
Michael wasn’t a part of the Power’s Academy, but after Marty got selected as a Category B rookie in the 2018 Draft, his passion to pursue a career in the game grew.
“We played together up until 16 or 17, I was then part of the Academy and that stuff so I wasn’t playing or training with him that much,” Marty said.
“That was probably a bit difficult for him but he grew heaps in the off-season after my first year, I told him to play with confidence, take the things on board and play his natural game.
“That was all his hard work paying off.”
While Daw, and even Aliir to an extent, were quite raw and learning the game, when they came into the league – the Frederick twins and Jiath are the products of taking up footy a lot earlier in their lives and coming through the respective pathways.
They not only have incredible physical attributes but they also have ‘footy smarts’.
“They have smarts for sure, I 100 per cent agree,” Vandenbergh said.
“And that’s why Majak is just a beautiful story because it did start so late.
“Even seeing it in the AFLW space just the absolute amazing talent and the smarts that are coming with it, it is just a really exciting period and if we can start to create more of those opportunities I think the sky is the limit for people of multicultural backgrounds.”
Frederick said this helped him take calculated risks on the field, which Port fans saw in his 23 disposal, six mark debut.
“I think that (taking risks) has always been part of my natural game,” Frederick said.
“There is always a bit of risk there but I think I’ve become a lot more calculated now.
“I’m not just doing it just to do it, I’m doing it for a reason.”
Vandenbergh said he expected more players with similar backgrounds to Aliir, Jiath and the Frederick twins to enter the league.
“I think it is an exciting period and I think it took someone like Majak Daw to show that there is a real talent but now that if we start to get them at a younger age then the footy smarts come with them as well,” he said.
“We are going to see a huge amount of people of multicultural backgrounds all throughout the leagues and at the clubs.”
Frederick, who was an AFL multicultural ambassador in 2020, said he was excited about the prospect of helping facilitate this in some way.
“I think there are heaps of opportunity around Australia when you do play footy, so the more (people from African and multicultural backgrounds) we can get in the better the game will be,” he said.
“It’s all you want to do, give back to the community and be a role model for all the little African boys who are watching you week-in-week-out.”
POWELL-PEPPER RETURNS TO POWER SIDE
Sam Powell-Pepper will replace the injured Travis Boak for his first game of the season, with Port Adelaide’s change in game style meaning Tom Rockliff will continue to bide his time in the SANFL.
After spending a month away from the club to focus on his wellbeing, Powell-Pepper’s strong form in the SANFL has earnt him the spot for the Power’s tantalising clash against Brisbane on Saturday night at the Gabba — with Boak ruled out because of a minor quad issue the star midfielder has been battling over the past couple of weeks.
Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley said the way Powell-Pepper had returned to the club was a credit to him.
“For Sam it was about getting himself in a good physical and mental health state,” Hinkley said.
“And that’s what we said, for him to get himself organised and be right and put himself in some really solid ground was important.
“Because his footy was going to be pretty simple, Sam plays footy pretty well when he is up and going so once he got everything else under control for him and we gave him the time to do that.
“Credit where credit is due Sam came back in really good shape, he has the support of his teammates and we are looking forward for Sam to reply some of that support back.”
Hinkley said Rockliff, who came on as the medical sub in Round 1 against North Melbourne but has not tasted AFL action since, was in the conversation to replace Boak, but Powell-Pepper’s midfield-forward mix won out.
“He’s in pretty solid form but the balance of what we wanted this week and the game we wanted to play we felt Sam provided that in a better way,” Hinkley said.
“If we were to go pure midfield then Rocky would be in a pretty good position.”
Rockliff, out of contract at the end of the season, was an unused medical sub in Round 2 and then was concussed in a SANFL match against Norwood.
The 31-year-old former Brisbane captain has amassed 41 disposals against South Adelaide and then 16 against Glenelg in a half at state league level but Hinkley said the Power AFL side, especially the midfield, was hard to crack into at the moment given Port’s change in game style in 2021.
“He just needs to stay consistent, there are a number of players and I know everyone likes to bring Tom up but we should bring up Trent McKenzie, we should bring up Jarrod Lienert, we should bring up Kane Farrell, we should bring up Sam Hayes and Peter Ladhams.
“But there seems to be a fascination around Rock, and some of it is because he is a really experienced player.
“I think the game that we are playing is slightly different now, we’ve had (Willem) Drew come into the side who has been a real big positive and we forget that he is a young emerging player.
“The people who are in Rock’s way are all playing very good football.”
Brisbane will be without reigning Brownlow Medallist Lachie Neale, but Hinkley said with Boak out for his side the Power would not have an advantage as they seek a first win over the Lions in four games.
Originally published as Martin Frederick: Port Adelaide defender’s incredible journey to AFL debut
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