Te Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po welcomed Māori and Aboriginal squads to Tūrangawaewae Marae today, ahead of the NRL All Stars match this Sunday.
Timana Tahu:
The biggest probably highlight is culture.
“Everyone loves culture in both sides and everyone loves exchanging culture.”
“For me, I’m half Aboriginal half Māori so for me this is special and for me I’ll get the project lead this event, which I get to represent both my cultures.”
But both strong cultures and also the players this is something where they can plug in before their season so they really look forward to playing in all stars this weekend
because not only like they play a game the You give back to the community, they’re also getting filled up with culture with their cultural advisor* and that’s probably the main component for them to start their season.
It’s a significant moment.
“We’re going onto the Queen’s marae, like this is very important to us, especially Māori and indigenous.
like everyone’s preparing and everyone was scrambling last night actually, you know, what do we do?
you know that’s respectful, what are the protocols?
You know, there’s gonna be culture exchanges inside and with the indigenous teams they’ve got their kaumātua’s and both from Torres Strait Islands and Aboriginal.
So this is very important to the players because you know if we’re on Australia and we’re on country we do welcome the country when we come over to Aotearoa.
Its pōwhiri and it’s about the respect and the blessing when you come on to come on the country so both teams understand that.
Both teams are respectful of that.
And This is a great day.
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“It’s mainly about plugging into it and culturally and lifting them back up because when it gets into the preseason it’s long it’s draining, the players, you know, they train hard and then the nerves start kicking in because trials and round ones around the corner.
“This is not just for performance.
“This is more about culture, filling the cups up and then also giving back to the community.
To be inspired you know for our people, like the players to go out there and show their talent, show a different type of game than what they see week in week out.
But the biggest thing is to inspire our young kids and show them that there is bigger dreams because a lot of these players come from the same communities that we all come from
whether it’s poverty, struggles, you know, the economic struggles, some come from destructive families and we all got those problems both with Māori and indigenous
and the thing is that those players through discipline and resilience.
This is where they are today and I think that’s what they do when they put that jumper on.
Is that I’m representing my people, I’m representing my community
And the thing is when they go out there, they’re not represent themselves, they’re representing something bigger to where the young girl or a young boy that’s watching on that day
and they say I wanna be like James Fisher Harris or I wanna be like Josh Addo-Carr. And that’s the start of a spark of a dream.
Anei ko nga kaitakaro whutuporo o te kapa all stars e whakaeke mai ana ki runga ki te marae o Turangawaewae, ki mua ki te aroaro o Mahinaarangi. Me te aha kua topu mai etehi kura o te rohe ki te hapai ake I te Kaupapa otira te whai wahi atu ki te korero ki etehi o nga whetu maiangi o tenei hakinakina. Hei tenei wikene tu ai ratau ki te mura o te ahi, rae ki te rae, kanohi ki te kanohi, ko wai ka hua ko wai ka tohu, taihoa tatau ka kite.
