In the lead-up to the annual Sir Doug Nicholls Round - which celebrates the culture of Indigenous Australians and their contribution to football - it seemed fitting to look back on some of the stars that have graced the football field.
With the archives deep and long, a limitation on just the AFL era still rendered the task of determining just who the top 10 Indigenous players would be, near impossible.
These 10 are superstars in their own right, but some may count themselves unfortunate not to be mentioned...
4Cyril Rioli
Like a shooting star streaming across the night sky, the Hawks small forward stood out as one of the best in his generation, and even the game.
In 11 years, Rioli became a four-time premiership player, three-time All-Australian and a Norm Smith Medallist. He kicked 275 goals from 189 outings.
But the stats don't show the intangibles that would've been plastered inside Hawthorn headquarters on a weekly basis.
Rioli's selflessness and football smarts were a lethal combination, but his brilliance was largely overshadowed by the stardom that donned the brown and gold through the premiership years.
