Elsie takes on Cultural Advisor role to All Stars

“This year was the first time there was a cultural advisor as part of the women’s team, I think they’ve always had one in the men’s team,” Elsie said.

“The cultural advisor plays a really significant role with the players, helping them to reconnect and offering cultural advice whilst in camp.

“Some of the players have never known their identity or family until coming into the camp, so they’ve been able to be exposed to their culture and their identity, their reconnection to family, to their spirit – to everything about being proud of who they are.

“It’s an important role that I was well-suited to as an Indigenous sportswoman myself.

“And just for them to have the extra person there that they could trust, especially on giving cultural advice, instead of going to coaches or managers – just to have that one person the players could rely on in asking for advice in terms of cultural protocols.

“And some of it was new for me, I’ve learned a lot myself in that space.

“Leading up to the game, we met everyone in Sydney and had team sessions, so we all got to know and talk to each other.

“When I first went into camp, I saw all the women we cheer for in the NRLW.

“They would come up to introduce themselves to me and I was starstruck just to be in camp with them, and they were so humble about that.

“We did beading, we did dilly bags, we were sharing stories.

“We had yarning circles to introduce ourselves – who we were, where we came from, who our mobs were.

“And we were able to reconnect ourselves as families within the group.

“We did dance practise leading up to the war cry, which everyone saw us do on national TV on Saturday, which was pretty awesome.

“I taught them how to do beading for bracelets we could put in the dilly bags given as gifts to the players.

“That was something really important to us.

“We gift people all

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the time, it’s part of our culture and it was something that really helped to strengthen them, reinforcing and giving them confidence.

“And the Maori players really appreciated it.

“When I went into camp I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t know how I was going to be accepted.

“But last night I sent a long message to the whole team to say how grateful I was to spend my week amongst such young, inspiring young women, and also the staff who work behind the scenes to get to where the girls are.

“We were all learning new things every day in the camp, and every day the girls had cultural questions relating to my roles and responsibilities.

“For me, as a representative from the Torres Strait, I was very grateful that our Aboriginal brothers and sisters, and our non-Indigenous friends, embraced our culture, our songs, our dances and storytelling with no hesitation.

“That made me feel really proud.”