Indigenous artists Marcus Mundy and Lucinda Thurston design new jerseys for Tathra Rugby League Juniors team.

Marcus and Lucinda revealed the jerseys to the under 14 and under 16 sides, explaining the story behind the artwork to the young players in a team meeting on Sunday, August 6.

Tathra Rugby League Juniors club president, Matt Collins, said the young players were stoked to see their new jerseys.

"The boys were really excited, you could see they had a real sense of pride in getting to wear the jerseys and to pay respect to Marcus and Lucinda and the local Indigenous culture," he said.

Matt said the jersey design concept had come about after the special formation of their under 16 side.

"Traditionally Tathra doesn't get the big numbers of players like other clubs do, so getting together an under 16 side is quite a big deal for the club," he said.

"This year one of our players Ari Sten, who played for the Bombala junior club last year, brought up the idea of combining players from both teams to form an under 16 group."

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Matt said with the support from Bombala junior club, several Bombala players transferred across to Tathra to form the under 16 team.

"It was really nice to see two small junior clubs working together, to make sure that at the end of the day, the kids had a chance to play some footy," he said.

Once the team was formed another of the new young players, Makai Mundy, raised the idea that they should create Indigenous jerseys to not only acknowledge the special formation of the team but also pay respects to the local Indigenous culture.

"It was great to see him join our club and recognise the effort the Bombala crew are making every week to make sure they are playing footy, so the jerseys ended up being a real gift for them as well," Matt said.

He said the teams coming together to form one group, ended up playing a big part in the design of the jersey, which Makai's parents Marcus and Lucinda created.

"The story behind the artwork was really amazing and the actual art piece itself, the presentation and how it looked on the jerseys was stunning," Matt said.

When creating the design for the artwork Marcus said he and Lucinda decided they'd incorporate two totem animals to represent the different clubs, the platypus for Bombala and the stingray for Tathra.

"The whole process was inspirational in itself, with the Bombala boys joining the team, I thought we could incorporate a platypus for them since Bombala is in platypus and fresh water country," he said.

"The idea of the stingray came from one of my teaching days with the Tathra public school students during NAIDOC celebrations last year, where a group of kids began to feed and interact with two big stingrays at Kianinny Bay."

In the artwork layout, Marcus explained that he and Lucinda drew both totems, incorporating different designs around each that then fed into the centre, which symbolised "the salt water meeting the freshwater in the meeting circle".

"You then had two smaller meeting circles beneath each animal, which represents the two clubs and the knowledge they share among each other as a team," he said.

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Marcus explained the footprints on the artwork symbolised sea eagle footprints, which also represented the journey the young players had taken since the start of the season.

"They've had a tough season and I was inspired by the resilience they showed each weekend walking out onto the football field, so we included them to show that and the sportsmanship they showed to each other both on and off the field," he said.

"I don't think I've ever seen that level of sportsmanship in other clubs among young boys before and we thought it would be really nice to include that."

Marcus further explained that the back design of the Indigenous jerseys included the player's number and 16 circular symbols around it, which symbolised the number of players in the team.

Lucinda said she and Marcus were honoured to have been asked to make the jerseys for the club and the young players.

"When we were creating the artwork we took it very seriously, we wanted to make sure the story we were telling came off as authentic and meaningful and I feel like we achieved that," she said.

When presenting the jerseys to the club and players, Lucinda and Marcus said the reactions had been overwhelmingly positive.

"Since the beginning every single person within that club has been absolutely supportive and has welcomed our kids, and all the kids in the club, with open arms. So we decided this was our way of giving back to them," Marcus said.

"We really wanted to recognise the community spirit that both clubs have, all the while supporting our son with his cultural identity which would not only help him embrace his culture, but encourage the kids around him to as well."

Marcus said they'd noticed a instant po response from the young players, who said they loved their jerseys.

"Some of the under 14 boys came up to us after, telling us that they were going to hang their jerseys up in their rooms," he said.

Matt said the creation of the jerseys would not have been made possible without the support from everyone involved in the club and the grant they'd obtained from one of their local banks.

"Bendigo Bank funded those jerseys through a successful grant application with them, without that funding, the jerseys wouldn't have happened," he said.

Matt said stepping back and looking at the achievements of the club as a whole, he said there was a real need to acknowledge all the work of the volunteers, who "keep the club running".

"Anyone who has had anything to do with our club, would know we've got a great community spirit," he said.

"There's a huge amount of work that goes into running the club and it's all volunteer based. Therefore our success can be attributed to our soldiers on the ground."

Matt said the volunteers and parents involved within the club all had the same objective in mind - to "keep the kids happy in their sport" and support them in training every week.

"I can't thank the committee and our local sponsors enough, for their efforts and support through the season," he said.

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Local sponsors included: BKK constructions, CRC constructions, Harris plumbing, Bega Concrete Tanks, Glen Lucas constructions among others.

"As a club we appreciate the value of our local sponsors, because without them we don't exist as a footy club," Matt said.

"We look forward to doing more next season, creating more jerseys for all our young players as well and building that relationship with our sponsors that help us every year."

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