When Newcastle Knights players make a pass, kick a goal or make a tackle, they're using mathematics.
Sport is filled with statistics nowadays, but the game of rugby league itself has invisible maths written all over it.
So it made sense for the University of Newcastle to host about 100 year 7 and 8 Indigenous students for a day of sport mathematics.
The event marked this week's NRL Indigenous round. Knights players Connor Watson and McKenzie Baker attended to pass on their skills in league and ... well ... maths.
Dr Nick Riley, a senior lecturer in the School of Education, said the students measured the angles of conversion kicks on graph paper.
"They measured the perimeter of the changing rooms and how long it takes to sprint the length of the field, based on their 10-metre time," Dr Riley said.
They measured the temperature and volume of ice baths in recovery pools, did calculations for the salary cap, produced a league table and built their dream team.
They also measured the angles of a kick, the hang time of a bomb, along with passing and kicking targets.
Framed Copy
You may have heard that the Uluru Statement from the Heart was awarded the Sydney peace prize for 2021.
Mount Hutton's John Ure has a framed copy of the Uluru statement in his house.
"I want to be reminded every time I walk past that it's unfinished business," John said.
He believes there remains a "great silence" among Australian society when it comes to Indigenous matters.
We wrote recently that Joseph Lycett's paintings in Newcastle in the early 1800s show Aboriginal people looking full of health and vigour.
"Of course they were a picture of health. They lived on this island for at least 60,000 years, hunting their meat, growing and harvesting their grains, fruits and vegetables," John said.
"They would have hunted the Australian megafauna that were still around at the time, such as the Zygomaturus trilobus, a large wombat-like animal the size of a bull. Killing, cutting up and carrying the meat from one of those would certainly have taken some strength and would not be for the faint-hearted.
"And don't forget that our First Nations people didn't have cars - they walked or ran everywhere, including constant running after their game during hunting - and kangaroos can move fast.
"The Earth was much cooler when Aboriginal people first lived in Australia and they continued to survive and thrive through what we commonly call the last Ice Age, as many of the lakes, rivers and streams froze over. This Ice Age lasted for about 10,000 years. They adapted to it and lived through it. Then as the ice melted and the seas rose, they again had to adapt - Sydney Harbour, Lake Macquarie and other coastal areas, formerly covered with vegetation, filled with water.
"And they continued to thrive until the British colonists took over their land, forced them off their traditional hunting and agricultural lands and eventually rounded up those who remained and put them onto church-run reserves so that they could be 'Christianised'."
After our story on Lycett and Aboriginals living in paradise in the Hunter, readers sent us book suggestions with an alternate view. They recommended 1788 by Watkins Tench [an officer on the first fleet] and The Life and Adventures of William Buckley.
