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All Stars clash: Playing footy for your family's blood

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Roar Guru
13th February, 2019
16

This Friday night at AAMI Park the Indigenous All Stars will clash with New Zealand Maori in the revamped NRL All Stars fixture.

The game is sure to produce a spectacular reintroduction to rugby league for 2019. Two proud indigenous cultures coming together, the emotional and tense war dances followed by thrilling action between some of the game’s biggest stars.

Reaction to the game has been generally positive, though comments have popped up in predictably pessimistic nature. One comment grabbed my attention. “Having teams based on race is troubling to me,” it said.

This comment didn’t make me mad; it made me curious as to how someone could not understand the importance of race and culture to a group of people and why this game is such a massive deal for the sport.

I’ll borrow from my own experience to try and explain.

I am a first-generation Thai-Australian man, the son of a Thai immigrant mother – now a true blue Aussie – and an Australian dad.

In September 2017 I was blessed with the unique and amazing opportunity to play an RLIF-sanctioned Test match for my country. I know what you’re thinking – Thailand, really? Do Tuk Tuk drivers even know what footy is?

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Granted, this was a little lower key than Australia vs Tonga at Mt Smart in October. In front of a few hundred people at Hillier Oval in Liverpool we took our fellow fledgling rugby league nation Chile to a 20-20 draw.

Like a lot of the players this Friday, I was not 100 per cent pure Thai. I am not fluent in the language. I am a born-and-bred Australian and proudly call Wollongong, not Bangkok, my home.

But all that was irrelevant as I stood in arms with my teammates, the Thai anthem blaring on the hired speakers as a lump formed in my throat. The ability to represent my family and my people’s blood made me feel closer to my culture than I ever had, even though the 65 million people I represented were none the wiser. The red, white and blue jersey that graced my back was a privilege that inspired me.

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Scale that up to the All Stars game and it is difficult for me to understand how anyone couldn’t appreciate the passion and emotion involved for the players of each team. When they perform their war dances they will be paying homage to millennia of rich cultural heritage. They will play in front of more than 20,000 people in person and over a million watching at home. They will inspire countless kids of all colours and cultures to embrace who they are and follow their dreams.

Sport brings out so many emotions, and on Friday night it will be pride.

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