OF all the theme rounds that once were on high rotation across the AFL fixture, only one has survived: Indigenous Round, now known as Sir Doug Nicholls Round.

Actually, that should be plural - Sir Doug Nicholls Rounds. Rounds 10 and 11 this season.

The double-up allows Port Adelaide to this weekend wear the Lachie Jones-inspired Brolga jumper - dedicated to his grandmother - at home, in Sunday's twilight clash with Essendon at Adelaide Oval.

And for the Port Adelaide Football Club to again make a strong statement of its commitment to respecting, honouring and promoting the Indigenous cultures of Australia, the oldest continuous cultures in human history.

Too often, Indigenous Round - Sir Doug Nicholls Round - is seen by just the marvellous jumpers designed with the magnificent art themes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders' hands and minds. Now there also is the "Welcome to Country" statements before each of the 18 games in the two rounds.

But the importance of this special event on the AFL fixture is not in simply appreciating the images on a piece of cloth. It is in the challenge to learn the stories behind each design - and of understanding the cultural significance in these stories.

In an era of AFL clubs being challenged to do more to enhance Indigenous issues, Port Adelaide has led the way - and was setting the example well before the club rose from suburbia to the national stage of the AFL.

Port Adelaide's Indigenous chapter dates to the late 1880s when the club embraced the man recognised as the first Indigenous player to take the field for a South Australian Football Association (now SANFL) club - Harry Hewitt. He was part of the Port Adelaide team that played Fitzroy - and won 2-0 - at Adelaide Oval on August 1, 1891 and was recognised by then Port Adelaide captain Ken McKenzie as an exceptional player capable of setting up a goalscoring play from defence.

A century later that spirit - as a footballer and cultural leader - lived on with Port Adelaide SANFL premiership player Andrew McLeod representing the AFL at a United Nations forum in Geneva to speak on racism in sport.

McLeod always has stressed the answer to racism is education - knowing more of each other, more of the world's many diverse cultures.

"No-one is born a racist," McLeod has repeatedly said. "The best way to remove racism from someone's behaviour is to educate."

Lachie Jones has in this Sir Doug Nicholls Round advanced his team-mates' understanding of his culture and his grandmother's difficult journey against racially motivated policies of a poorly educated Australian society.

"We are getting better as a society (in ending racism), we are getting better educated, but we still have a long way to go," says Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley. "Indigenous round is an amazing part of our football season; it is one of the rounds I love the most. 

"It is a special round that I have an enormous amount of pride in. It is one of the rounds that I fondly await. To see the jumpers at every club ... 

"As a footy club we hope and think we do (cultural awareness) pretty well and we are strong in that space. We learn a lot around the Indigenous players' stories. Lachie's story of his grandmother makes us feel fortunate to have Lachie Jones at our football club. You can't get enough of these stories. We have such good knowledge (of Indigenous culture), but we have more knowledge to gain."

AND FINALLY ....

WE live in a world of lists. Top-10 lists, top-50 lists, lists about lists.

And during a fortnight of understanding those of different upbringings than our own, it would not be the time to start a heavy debate on the views of a long-time agitator of the Port Adelaide Football Club.

But!

When Australian Football Hall of Fame selector and inductee Graham Cornes produces a top-10 list of the greatest players to wear the South Australian representative jumper AND it does not include Bob Quinn, then there needs to be a response.

Robert Berrima Quinn was the first South Australian to be chosen as captain of the All-Australian team - the first All-Australian team of 1947 when he was at the end of his career.The resume includes 15 State games from 1936-1947 with five years sacrificed to war service in North Africa and in the Pacific to protect our freedom to produce top-10 lists.

Quinn was South Australian State captain in 1945, 1946 and 1947 - and should always be remembered (among many of his great football achievements) for his leadership in the State game against Victoria at Princes Park in 1946.

In a red-and-white jumper (borrowed from North Adelaide because of the shortages created by the war), Quinn had the previous year led South Australia to a convincing 52-point win against Victoria at Adelaide Oval. Quinn was best-on-ground.

The rematch at Princes Park (with the MCG still unavailable after being taken over for war needs) was not so encouraging for South Australian pride. At half-time, the Big V led by 39 points (13.7 to 6.10) with the scribes at the game noting Quinn was holding the candle for a South Australian fight back with "determined play and clever leadership".

Quinn's half-time speech became the subject of enormous public curiosity. More so considering that with 10 minutes to play, South Australia led by 24 points.

"He told them," says fellow Port Adelaide captain Tim Ginever, "He told all of them, 'Don’t bother coming out unless you're prepared to put your body on the line!".

 The match ended in a draw, Quinn was described as "the best South Australian footballer of all time" ... and almost a century later he is not recognised in a top-10 list?

This was the State game at which a war-time doctor, then living in Geelong, knocked on the door of the South Australian changerooms asking if the "B. Quinn" whose name he had seen in the morning papers was the same B. Quinn he had operated on at Tobruk.

"He trod on a landmine and was about to have his leg taken off," fellow Magarey Medallist Geof Motley recalls. "He wouldn't let them take his leg off and he came back four years later, played football again and won his second Magarey Medal."

The surgeon knocking on the door at Princes Park asked Quinn to sit on a table so he could look at his work from a war hospital in north Africa. "You did a good job, doctor," said Quinn. Indeed satisfied he had done a good job, the doctor bid farewell and wished Quinn the best for the match.

Lest we forget!

Quinn's entire football story, let alone his achievements with the State team, merit far more than recognition on a top-10 list. He is a legend. He should be recognised as such in the pantheon of Australian football known as the Hall of Fame.