Their smiles say it all.
The Koori Kangaroos today received their 2021 training and playing kits, ahead of the rescheduled McDonald’s Kanga Cup.
Designed by local Ngunnawal man, 20-year-old artist Byron Stuart Williams, the Kangaroos team manager Selina Walker said everyone is really impressed with what’s been created, particularly with the acknowledgment to this year’s NAIDOC theme, Heal Country.
The theme is calling for a better understanding from all Australians, to continue to seek greater protections for lands, waters, sacred sites and cultural heritage from exploitation, desecration, and destruction.
“He had a vision. And with this year’s NAIDOC theme of Heal Country, I know Byron had that in the back of his mind, and it’s been incorporated into the artwork,” Koori Kangaroos team manager Selina Walker said.
“He’s a contemporary artist, which you can see in the artwork, he’s drawn on traditional as well as some contemporary design.”
The Koori Kangaroos played their first game together in 2019 in the McDonald’s Kanga Cup. Most met each other for the first time when they took to the field but this year, they’ll have a few more training sessions under their belt ahead of the September tournament.
“It was an initiative started by Capital Football, to have an Indigenous team entered into the Kanga Cup back in 2019 with the vision that it would continue every year and that we would build on that,” Selina said.
“We’re on the reconciliation journey. I’m very involved in my culture and a strong advocate here in the ACT, and we wanted to represent the Traditional Owners of this land.”