The GIANTS will break new ground on Sunday, wearing the club’s first-ever AFLW indigenous jumper when the GIANTS take on Fremantle in Perth.
The jumper was designed by Leeanne Hunter, who previously designed the Sir Doug Nicholls Round jumper for the GIANTS’ AFL team in 2019.
With input from the AFLW leadership group, Hunter’s design tells the ‘GIANTS’ Story’ and will be worn by the team for all away games in 2021.
The design includes a focus on:
- Family and communities: representing the inclusiveness of the club; bringing together players, staff, members and fans as well as people coming together from diverse backgrounds and many different locations, united as GIANTS.
- The path of the GIANTS’ team including the journey of past and present players. Representing players coming together from across Australia to Western Sydney to embark on a journey to premiership glory. Inaugural GIANT and past player Codie Briggs assisted with totems to be included in the ‘journey’ and to help illustrate the team’s culture. Delma Gisu's journey to become the first Torres Straight Islander to play for the GIANTS is also represented.
- The team’s three core values of Tough, Selfness and Support are also represented.
Hunter spoke about the creation of the design:
“The U shape in the centre circle represents an aerial view of a person sitting, with digging stick, representing a woman. The U shape is placed in the centre to depict the support networks who work behind the scenes to organise the games & training for teams,” she said.
“The Inner circle has Black footprints, depicting the reserves team members.
“The third and fourth inner circles have the female image for the 16 players on the field, all aiming for their goal and inter-connected. The black and white colours are representative of women from all cultural backgrounds.
“The pathway created by the AFL for female players to play at a professional level is also represented. The Emu footprint is the totem of Codie Briggs and her family heritage from the Murray River in Victoria. The Emu print is depicted walking together and role modelling as other female players seek to play in the AFLW.
“The Wave is representative of the Salt Water people from the Torres Strait and any other mainland Aboriginal people who are from Salt Water country, it doubles as the wave of women in the past who missed the opportunity to play AFLW at a professional level.
“On the back of the jumper, the two hands are symbolic of the community coming together to celebrate the games.”
The 2021 AFLW Indigenous jumper is available for pre-order from the GIANTS Shop.
