“So the most exciting thing for me is from day one this baby is going to know it’s an Aboriginal person and is connected to the longest living culture in the world, which is something I didn’t have when I was growing up.

Loading

“Every opportunity we can we’ll be giving him or her an Indigenous experience, teaching him or her about what it means to be Aboriginal. For me as a father, I feel I have a role to play to instil that culture, as well as discipline and having fun.”

The good news comes at a time when Goodes, who retired at the end of the 2015 season, is back in the spotlight. The AFL and its 18 clubs made a belated but unreserved apology to the dual Brownlow medallist last week for failing to act sooner against the racism that prompted him to call time on his career.

Two documentaries about Goodes and the way he was booed into retirement are being released this year - one, The Final Quarter, is currently showing at the Sydney Film Festival. The other, the Stan Grant-penned The Australian Dream, comes out in August.