http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...ong-love-of-rugby-league-20170728-gxkw01.html
New ARL commissioner Megan Davis on her lifelong love of rugby league
Megan Davis, among her other distinguished posts, has mediated between nations in her role as chair of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations.
It's serious business, with high stakes and the need for expert diplomacy. It might even be enough, the law professor hopes, to put her in good stead for dealing with the egos, politics and power plays of the greatest game of all.
"I've had to do some pretty serious negotiations between many member states of the UN on a number of things. In terms of the diplomacy that's required, to negotiate among the clubs and the states, hopefully those skills will be useful," Davis said with a smile after being appointed to a seat on the Australian Rugby League Commission.
If Davis would be wise not to underestimate the machinations of rugby league, than rusted-on powerbrokers in the game should be equally as wary if they are planning to take on the decorated lawyer, teacher and constitutional expert.
A proud Cobble Cobble woman, Davis is a Professor of Law at the University of NSW, a commissioner of the NSW Land and Environment Court, an indigenous leader that played a key role in the Referendum Council Aboriginal Constitutional Dialogues, as well as a former UN Fellow of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.
And she knows a hell of a lot about rugby league. Immersed in the code since her childhood - 'It's like air. You don't even question it. It's just who you are ' - Davis can't remember a time when she wasn't speaking about, watching or listening to the game.
"Of course, that's the game of choice for most blackfullas. My own family were moved from Warrina in the Bunya Mountains to the Cherbourg Reserve early in the 1900s. I have family growing up in Cherbourg that always played rugby league," Davis said.
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"It's just a big part of our culture. They eventually left the Reserve and my grandad and his brother grew up in Urangan near Hervey Bay. They played around there and were big contributors to the development of indigenous rugby league there, including the creation of the Pialba All Blacks in the 1920s.
"My dad played rugby league. My brothers played rugby league. My nephews played rugby league. We moved and ended up in Logan (Eagleby) and my brother was good mates with Alan Cann and Tonie Carroll. It's just a huge part of our culture."
Those that have simplistically painted the addition of Davis and former Queensland premier Peter Beattie to the ARLC as another move by the Maroon mafia need to understand the depths of Davis' affection for league, it's history and the legacy yet to be left.
Throughout her career, she has found inspiration through musicians, diplomats, poets and artists. Yet rugby league has somehow always been the soundtrack and the framework, no matter where she was in the world.
"I always credit my very good study routines to rugby league. On the weekend, it revolved around the ABC Grandstand call and sitting in my study around that. One way of getting on with your brothers in adolescence is to find something in common with them. I think league was the universal language in our house.
And on whether her Queensland background should concern the Sydney clubs: "Queensland is one aspect of my identity. But I've lived in Sydney since 2002. I go to Henson Oval, Newtown... I've spent enough time here to appreciate the culture of rugby league in this city."
Davis enters the Commission with impeccable credentials for the looming constitutional reform but in terms of the code, a fan's perspective. She's an avid attendee of games from Allianz Stadium to Penrith. She has never met stars like Johnathan Thurston (she supports the Cowboys) and never set foot in a post-game dressing room.
But she sees beauty and inspiration in the game's players and the stories that remain to be told. For her family and many like it, the game represented so much more than a sport and a contest.
"There's a very interesting story about how rugby league was the ticket off the Reserve for many blackfullas, to actually play in white teams among white Australians. It was almost the emancipatory potential of league that enabled people to leave the Reserve. It's a really important story that needs to be told.
"AFL likes to promote itself as the indigenous code. And people will say sneering things about rugby league, like 'why do you want to follow a colonial sport', and I think that's such an unsophisticated way to look at the role rugby league plays in Aboriginal communities.
"It is true to say that it gave people freedom... the freedom to leave the Reserves and play among other Australians. This sport, that Aboriginal men were so good at... the archives are so rich, stories of great Aboriginal players we are yet to write about. And I say 'yet' because they need to be written about."
