Maori players have vowed to use the NRL's All Stars match to show the strength of their culture, spurred on by a divisive debate back home in New Zealand.
Football has often taken a back seat in the lead-up to All Stars matches, with a focus on community, culture or political issues such as Australia's Voice referendum in 2023.
This year, Maori players say they are playing for the place of their people in New Zealand, where the government has proposed reforms to the legal interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Maori women's co-captain Kennedy Cherrington said the CommBank Stadium games had therefore taken on extra meaning this year.
"For us it's a chance to take our people on our shoulders and show them that we are proud to be Maori in a world where it's hard to be Maori," Cherrington said.
"Coming together has been the theme, unity with our teina (siblings) and our whanau (family), how we come together for our people back home.
"For all those ancestors who came before us, how we move together, because that is the only way forward, just like our Indigenous brothers and sisters, in unity.
"We are solid in who we are and we want to show the rest of the world we're not backing down, whether that's on things going on back home or in this game."
The changes would effectively remove promises made to Maori back in 1840 when Maori chiefs signed the treaty with the British Crown to form New Zealand.
The law reform has generated an enormous backlash, including the largest ever protest march on Wellington's parliament, and hundreds of thousands of parliamentary submissions.
"Every year is very special, but given what is going on with our Te Tiriti Waitangi, it does become a little bit more powerful," Cherrington said.
"We have a lot more mana behind our words, a lot more mana behind the rugby league game, behind our haka, behind our waiata (song).
"We're at the pinnacle, this is the pinnacle of our game.
"If we can put a strong foot forward in establishing that we're Maori, we're not going anywhere, we're staunch in what we're about, then that is more powerful for our young teina back home."
Men's coach Adam Blair said it was also a motivating factor for his team, with the likes of co-captain James Fisher-Harris having fought hard to play in the match ahead of the Warriors' Las Vegas trip.
"Our people are always at our forefront when it comes to this week," Blair said.
"Our culture is just as important as any other culture in the world. We are trailblazers for our next generation of kids coming through.
"There is no other place or time I would rather be than in this All-Stars week. It's a place of purpose, it's a place of passion, it's a place of journey, a place of connection.
"This is why we do what we do, and we have the likes of our whanau leading, being role models."
