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- The Indigenous All-Stars (known as for sponsorship reasons Qantas Kickstart Indigenous All-Stars and formerly known as the Aboriginal All-Stars) is an Australian rules football team composed of players that identify as Indigenous Australian or with an indigenous culture. The team has also represented Australia (in 2013) in the International Rules Series. The junior (U18 and U16) side is known as the Flying Boomerangs. The team was originally based on Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, but have been based in Darwin, Northern Territory since 1993. The AFL promotes the concept as recognition of the indigenous Australians' contribution to the national competition, with approximately one in ten AFL players identifying as an Indigenous Australian. Since 2003, the team played a regular biennial pre-season match against an Australian Football League (AFL) club; the only exception was in 2011, when the scheduled match was cancelled due to inclement weather. The matches were usually played in the Northern Territory, either at Marrara Oval in Darwin or Traeger Park in Alice Springs. In recent years, the AFL's support for the concept has waned and the league has been criticised for letting its clubs prevent the All-Stars from selecting its top Indigenous senior players, or for placing restrictions on their game time. Additionally, the competing club side often treats the match as a preseason practice match, such that winning the match is less important than developing young players or building match fitness prior to the regular season. Despite this, the match remains popular with spectators in the Northern Territory. The 2003 match retains the record for the most attended match of any football code in the Northern Territory, with 17,500 in attendance. The best on ground for the Indigenous All-Stars is awarded the Polly Farmer Medal which is in honour of Graham Farmer. In 2018, the AFL created an All-Indigenous "All-Star" AFLX 8 player team named "Deadly" captained by Indigenous All-Star Eddie Betts. This team played in the 2019 AFLX tournament winning 1 of its 3 matches. However the AFLX format was widely criticised as an unsuitable replacement for Australian rules matches and was soon abandoned. (en)
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