"It was a really special day".
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That's how Pirates five-eighth Jayden Kitchener-Waters described Saturday's inaugural Indigenous round.
A momentous day for the club, capped off by a 51-12 win over Inverell, the proud Gomeroi and Ngiyampaa man said it was everything he'd hoped it would be "and more".
One of the best parts was the way the club and the players really got behind it.
"I think it was just really good to see the Pirates boys really get around it and the Inverell boys as well, I really appreciate that," Kitchener-Waters said.
"As I said (leading into the game) this is the first of many."
The driving force behind the day, which included a smoking ceremony as the players ran out onto the field, and a welcome to country, delivered by councillor Marc Sutherland, Kitchener-Waters confessed to feeling quite nervous before the game.
"My family came over from Coffs Harbour, my mum and two sisters, my uncle.
"It was pretty special having them here," he said.
"I kept looking over (at them)."
Prop Tyson Waters echoed Kitchener-Waters' sentiments about the day.
![Kitchener-Waters with councillor Marc Sutherland, who performed the welcome to country before the match. Kitchener-Waters with councillor Marc Sutherland, who performed the welcome to country before the match.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ingYyB85ps4jmG9t8mfsHP/b55688f9-ac8f-4043-9891-8f6213e69054.JPG/r1043_321_6016_3530_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"Being a proud Gomeroi boy I'm proud to see our club being able to take these steps," he said.
"We've got a lot of Indigenous representation in the team and it's just a great thing to be a part of."
All the more special for him was that his father Bernard 'Kojak' Waters designed the special jerseys they wore. They also swapped their customary black and gold socks for black, red and yellow.
"It always makes you a bit nervy there," he said.
"But proud to do well for him.
"And he was sitting here watching so glad I could get a try in front of him."
He scored with three minutes to go and much to the delight of his team-mates and the crowd whipped out the goanna in celebration.
"I had to put a celebration on it," Waters said.
![Kaylab Waters conducted the smoking ceremony. Picture by Gareth Gardner Kaylab Waters conducted the smoking ceremony. Picture by Gareth Gardner](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ingYyB85ps4jmG9t8mfsHP/f3277a29-95f5-499c-91cb-31f8709e30fd.jpg/r0_329_4934_3443_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The game itself turned out to be a tighter contest than it looked like being when Pirates captain Conrad Starr crossed for the second of his four tries for the game, to make it 22-nil midway through the first half.
They were dominant, there was a real assurity about their play, and they looked like they were going to run away with it.
But then the Highlanders started to get a bit of ball and unsettled the home side with their uptempo and ad-lib play, and it all became a bit loose,
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"The main word is structure," Kitchener-Waters said.
"We just didn't play to our structure. We just went away from that and got really excited and were playing footy that we shouldn't be playing and playing a brand of footy that's not ours."
They got sucked into playing the game the Highlanders wanted to - uptempo and throwing the ball around.
Two blistering long range tries to the visitors - the second an 80m intercept - saw them close to 27-12 at half-time.
They then had Pirates under the pump for much of the early part of the second half.
![Pirates looking resplendent in their special jerseys for Saturday's Indigenous round. Pirates looking resplendent in their special jerseys for Saturday's Indigenous round.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ingYyB85ps4jmG9t8mfsHP/2bab80d1-cd7f-4ca1-9705-e8eeed515747.JPG/r215_430_3548_2132_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
But the home side were able to hold them out, thanks in no small part to a couple of big turnover plays from Starr and Nic McCrohan with the Highlanders only metres out from their line.
Ryan Witherdin's second try wrested some of the ascendancy back for Pirates and they were able to kick away to run out 39 point gandjarra - that's winners or champions in the Gomeroi language.
"It's still pretty early in the season and we're building and we'll just take that as another lesson.
"We just need to play our footy and we'll get results," Kitchener-Waters said.
"Every time we did play our footy we got results. Every time we built five, six, seven phases we scored a try."
Elsewhere Walcha pipped Moree 24-22 and Narrabri thrashed Quirindi 62-7.