For some it's Australia Day. But for others, it's Invasion Day. Or Survival Day.
That's why former Canberra Raiders junior Cleveland McGhie is taking his Mawang Brothers to Sydney to play in the Survival 9s tournament on Saturday.
For McGhie, playing in a team with Indigenous family and friends the day after January 26 was the perfect way to say they'd survived.
Survived as a people. Survived as a culture.
Calls to have Australia Day's date changed have grown in recent years, with some local councils choosing not to celebrate it and radio station Triple J deciding to shift their popular Hottest 100 to another day.
The controversy comes from January 26 celebrating the day Britain's First Fleet arrived in Sydney's Port Jackson in 1788.
McGhie felt the date should be changed because it represented Indigenous people losing their land and the start of the significant hardship for his people.
"I believe for many reasons it should be changed. The 26th of January is the day where our culture and our people look for healing," he said.
"That was the start of our land being taken from us, the start of hardship that our culture went through and our people went through ... the loss of land, being civilised and having to grow up in white Australia and dealing with the barriers and challenges that Aboriginal people face not having white privilege.
"For myself it was a day of invasion for our culture, but also given the significance that it's the day after that day that we're playing in this competition, this will be my way and our way of celebrating our survival as Aboriginal people.
"We're the longest surviving culture on the planet, so we're not going anywhere anytime soon."
McGhie wanted to celebrate this survival by doing something he loved with family and friends.
His brother, a couple of cousins from Condobolin in country NSW, near Parkes, some of his fiancee's family and mates from Queanbeyan, Wagga Wagga and Wollongong - including Queanbeyan Blue Jake Wheeler.
It's where the team name comes from - Mawang is the Wiradjuri people's word for "together".
Even their major sponsor, Curijo, has cultural significance - doing social work in the Indigenous community.
An added bonus is the NSW Koori representative team to play at the Cabramatta International 9s next Saturday will be picked at the Survival 9s.
McGhie was selected in the Canberra region under-23s to play the Victorian under-20s as the curtain raiser for the World Club Challenge between Melbourne Storm and the Leeds Rhinos at AAMI Park on February 16.
"?????????I'm not available to travel down to Melbourne, which is a bit of a shame. It's going to be a great opportunity for the boys that do go down there," the Woden Valley Ram said.
"I'd like to see myself in the Monaro squad again this year and hopefully push on to make the country under-23s for a second time."
