Nakia_Cockatoo

Nakia Cockatoo

Nakia Cockatoo

Australian rules footballer


Nakia Cockatoo (/nəˈkə/ nə-KY;[1] born 23 October 1996) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Brisbane Lions and Geelong in the Australian Football League (AFL).

Quick Facts Personal information, Full name ...

Early life

Cockatoo was born in the Northern Territory into a family of Indigenous Australian descent (Jupangati and Marrithiyal)[2] and was raised the small town of Humpty Doo. He began playing football at Auskick level with the Humpty Doo Bombers.[3] He played his junior football with Southern Districts in the NTFL and the Northern Territory Thunder in the NEAFL.[4]

He has strong family connections to Queensland with his surname deriving from his great-great-great grandfather who was known as 'Old Man Cockatoo' in the Cape York Peninsula[5] as well as three of his Queensland-based uncles Che, David and Donald playing professional football in the AFL.[6] Several female cousins of his are also involved in the Gold Coast Suns' developmental football academy.[7]

AFL career

Cockatoo was drafted with pick 10 in the 2014 AFL Draft,[8] by Geelong Football Club. He made his debut in the first round of the 2015 AFL season against Hawthorn.[9]

At the conclusion of the 2020 AFL season, Cockatoo was traded to the Brisbane Lions,[10] where he would play 15 games before retiring at the conclusion of the 2023 season.

Statistics

Legend
  G  
Goals
  K  
Kicks
  D  
Disposals 
  T  
Tackles
  B  
Behinds 
  H  
Handballs 
  M  
Marks
More information Season, Team ...

References

  1. "How to say the AFL's trickiest names". Australian Football League. 30 March 2022. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
  2. "AFL Players' Indigenous Map 2020" (PDF). AFL Players Association. 2 June 2020. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  3. AFL Record. Round 22, 2022. pg 40
  4. Schubert, Steven (28 November 2014). "Nakia Cockatoo from NT Thunder snapped up by Geelong Cats in AFL draft". ABC Online. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  5. Harms, John. "Force for good: how Indigenous Australians have enriched football". Audio on Demand. National Museum of Australia. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
  6. "Geelong Cats pick up four young guns". Geelong Advertiser. 27 November 2014. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
  7. "Yokayi Footy: Name of the game for footy blood rich Cockatoo-Motlap twins". AFL Women's. 3 October 2020. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  8. Auciello, Michael (27 November 2014). "AFL Draft: Geelong Cats pick up four young guns". Geelong Advertiser. News Corp Australia. Archived from the original on 31 March 2015. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  9. McNicol, Adam (4 April 2015). "Final Cats side v Hawks". geelongcats.com.au. Telstra Media. Archived from the original on 4 April 2015. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  10. "Lions land former No.10 pick from Cats". AFL Media. 11 November 2020. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  11. "Nakia Cockatoo". AFL Tables. Retrieved 8 October 2023.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Nakia_Cockatoo, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.