Liam Jones with Victorian indigenous children from the Bulldogs Koori youth program. Yet Jones has been getting as much out of ''Nallei Jerring'' - a Koori youth program run by the Western Bulldogs that translates as ''Join and Unite'' - as the kids he hopes are gaining a sense of who they are and where they come from that he would have loved exposure to at their tender age. Now, at 22, his yearning to know more has been pricked. Attending workshops with teammates Brett Goodes and Koby Stevens, and the 30 Victorian indigenous children who are taking part, he has found himself surrounded by kids who remind him of his younger self. ''If I'd had the opportunity when I was their age, I'd have really jumped at it and enjoyed it,'' Jones says. ''If they can learn a bit off each other, networking and getting friends and staying in contact, they have that link to a little bit of culture.'' Culture and identity

Nallei Jerring began by taking a given around these parts - that kids love footy - and asking what other window that passion might open. The children are encouraged to write their own football story, and in doing so to explore the story of their Aboriginality. Jones quickly recognised kids like himself, who haven't grown up in ''traditional'' indigenous communities, ''who might only have some or a little Aboriginal in them''. He and his sisters grew up with their mother in Hobart, and while he had an appreciation of the heritage of his Darwin-born father (former St Kilda ruckman Bob Jones), he admits he has much to take in and is keen to do so. ''I need to learn a lot about culture,'' Jones says. ''I don't know much language, but I do know where my people come from and I'm really interested in learning more about it.'' He cherishes the memory of Bob Jones taking his children to Halls Creek in the Kimberley when he was 10 or 11, seeing his people's land, coming to appreciate that the kids he saw there with little more than the clothes on their backs were family. Nallei Jerring distinguishes itself from programs linking sport and education, facilitator Simon Flagg says, by bringing together kids who aren't necessarily in trouble or struggling, but are already engaged and doing the right thing. Key to the seven workshops, which have included a virtual ''return to country'' excursion to the You Yangs, is a reconnection with the way young people interacted in a pre-social media age. It's a time as foreign to 10-14-year-olds as the drop kick is to their parents.

''It's about bringing back how we got to interact in a way kids don't today, to be proud of your Aboriginality, hang out with other kids,'' says Flagg, who works for the Department of Justice. ''If you don't have a real sense of culture and identity and family we find you really struggle as a person, you tend to question yourself.'' Making his mark Cooper Craig-Peters is already catching eyes as an 11-year-old playing for Sanctuary Lakes, and off the field as a young leader who last week made a speech to Wyndham Council about the Aboriginal activist William Cooper, a beacon among Cooper's great-great-grandfather's Yorta Yorta community. His Nallei Jerring story tells of a love for the Demons, for Nathan Jones and Aaron Davey, and his dream of being as good as his grandfather, ''Piccolo'' Peters, who made Healesville's team of the century. Cooper says the Koori youth program has been great for getting kids together ''and talking about their indigenous stories'', and has helped his understanding of his Yorta Yorta and Wurundjeri heritage. He's enjoyed getting to know people he now calls ''my Bulldog mates''; Stevens is his favourite, ''because he's a midfielder like I am and he gets hard-ball gets''.

He's been to every session so far, and is emblematic of the teaching truism that children will throw themselves into a task, such as writing, when the subject matter is something they enjoy. ''I barrack for the Melbourne Demons because my whole family does and I am told that if I didn't barrack for them I would have to move out,'' Cooper writes. ''That's the family rule.'' Parental approach Cooper's mother Mel is a policewoman based at Laverton, and has been involved in a parallel pursuit of Nallei Jerring - engaging the kids' parents in the importance of education and community. ''I think the whole program [is about] all of us being comfortable with who we are,'' Mel Peters says. ''I think a lot of people term us as Urban Aboriginals - I don't care what they term us, as long as they identify that we are still Aboriginals. ''Whether our colour of skin is pale or dark, we don't have to justify it, we're all a bit sick of justifying.''

The fact that she is one of barely 10 police officers among Victoria's 10,000 who identify as indigenous is alarming. Standing in front of her community and saying, ''I'm a copper,'' has been a warming knock-on benefit of the program. Showing the way If Jones had been asked to write his own footy story when he was Cooper Craig-Peters' age, he says it would have told of a kid who had played for North Hobart since he was eight, who went for a kick every day at the local park, who played footy because his dad had played for St Kilda, and whose dream was to follow him into the AFL. He lives that dream now, a fact he has been keen to pass on to kids who were initially shy in front of men they had seen only on TV, but who Jones says have now become friends not only with each other, but with the footballers, too. ''I think they appreciate now that we're exactly like they are, just a bit older, and that we've worked hard and been fortunate to get where we are.

''If you want to do something, stay in school, work hard and it's achievable. We were nothing special growing up, we grew up very similar to them.'' Flagg says it has been great for the children to get an understanding of Jones, Goodes and Stevens as people. ''They're not just football players - they're still Aboriginal people, they have the same views and commitments these kids are growing up with.''