The only Aboriginal Victorians playing in the competition at the time were Adam and Brett Goodes, Nathan Lovett-Murray, Andrew Walker and Koby Stevens and draft numbers were falling worryingly below the benchmark 10 per cent.

And the dearth of Indigenous coaches and players at VFL and TAC level demonstrated that the situation was unlikely to improve. The view of AFL development officers was that the VFL and the under-18 competition did not create a welcoming environment for Indigenous or football hopefuls from multicultural backgrounds and were woefully ill-equipped to deal with the cultural challenges involved.

Well before the AFL moved to introduce the next generation academies came the Laguntas. A joint venture between Richmond, the AFL and AFL Victoria, the aim of the bold plan was to educate and train the best Indigenous talent in the state and field an all-Indigenous under-18 football team to take on the TAC and other representative teams several times a year.

But the concept divided some key members of the Aboriginal community, criticised by Dean Rioli for being segregational and drawing lines between the AFL's then community engagement manager Jason Mifsud and the already philosophically opposed Michael Long.

Mifsud, with the support of three-time Brisbane premiership player Chris Johnson who was the first coach of the teenage Laguntas squad of 40, persisted with the view that drastic action was required to encourage Indigenous Victorians back into the system by inclusion along with education as to the demanding transition into the AFL.

According to Johnson, now the AFL's diversity talent manager, Victorian Indigenous footballers were not only struggling with the demands of the elite game but also with their own cultural identities.

"We were fair-skinned in comparison with players from the Northern Territory, Western Australia and many South Australians," he said.

"Even this year, when we went to play in the carnival, our boys didn't feel like they belonged. They just sat back and were beaten easily by some highly skilled players in the first two games and then we sat up one night and had some full and frank discussions. After that, they understood they had no need to be embarrassed or feel any less part of what we were doing. We've even lined them up from darkest to lightest and explained we're all Indigenous Australians and the colour of our skin doesn't mean we are more indigenous than the next player."

Tigers chief Brendon Gale said the all-Indigenous concept had provoked robust debate before Richmond introduced the first squad of Laguntas into the Korin Gomadji Institute. "It's positive discrimination," Gale said at the time.

"This is about seeing good young Victorian Koori and Indigenous talent coming together, training and being educated. This is not about our club, but about creating a pathway for indigenous players and coaches."

The 2016 draft demonstrated that the positive discrimination had vindicated the plan, now refined and in its fourth year with the latest breed of Laguntas taking on the Jim Stynes multicultural academy squad before Saturday's VFL clash.

Five former Laguntas were drafted at the end of last season - Kayle Kirby and Mitch McCarthy (both by Collingwood), Dion Johnstone (Melbourne), Jamaine Jones (Geelong) and the Western Bulldogs' Tristan Tweedie.

That is some achievement when you consider the years when no indigenous Victorians were drafted and even the pioneering Gerard Neesham declared his Clontarf program would never work in Victoria because of the unique challenges facing Aboriginals in this state.

This year's program involves four intakes of 25 players respectively with notable draft prospects Ethan Penrith and the Firebrace brothers Jesse and Jake among them and, according to Johnson, at least four Indigenous coaches set to move into either the VFL or the TAC in 2018.

Aaron Clark now directs Richmond's KGI which has in recent years seen Shane Edwards, who will wear the No.67 in the Dreamtime game against Essendon signifying the year Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders were given voting rights, one of a number of mentors to the Laguntas along with Dustin Martin and Demon Neville Jetta.

The Tigers' Daniel Rioli and Nathan Drummond are also former Laguntas, products of a program that ??? far from creating further divisions between black and white Victoria ??? appears to have quietly created a more successful pathway for Indigenous athletes into football.