Daniel Rioli an inspiration to his home community Pirlangimpi ahead of Grand Final
DANIEL Rioli will play a Grand Final for Richmond in number 17, just like his Norm Smith winning great uncle Maurice. But for his family and friends home in Pirlangimpi, he’ll emerge a winner no matter what.
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A YOUNG teen with scruffed hair, ball clutched tight between his hands, makes a mad dash towards the posts.
Barefoot on a dirt paddock and wearing the number 17, he quickly lines up, pulls back and fires.
The ball soars between the poles.
“I got it through the middle,” says an excited John Rioli, 13.
“I was the only one who got it through.”
In his number 17 jersey, this young Rioli represents the past, present — and potentially future — of Melbourne battlers, the Richmond Tigers.
He hails from one of the sweatiest, remotest and most prolific indigenous AFL player producing community the nation has ever known.
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Welcome to Pirlangimpi — also known as Garden Point. Last clip of Australia before the Northern Territory drops into the Timor Sea.
Population wavering between 300 and 400.
Traditional stomping ground of three Norm Smith medallists, nine AFL players and a bevy of up-and-coming stars.
Home of the Imalu Tigers. Breeding ground for the future of football.
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Uncle John Rioli has a few stock opinions to share with whoever will listen.
So specific and oft repeated they are, many on Melville Island think he should never be allowed near a microphone.
But that’s never stopped John — brother of past Richmond legend Maurice Rioli and great uncle of present Richmond prodigy Daniel Rioli — before.
“I always try to drum into (Daniel) about the goalkicking side of it — you get a chance to kick a goal, you always hit the goal umpire. That’s your main target. Hit the goal umpire. Lot of blokes kick the ball, they don’t know what they aim at,” John opines.
“… You can’t go wrong if you aim for him. So that’s what I stress to Daniel.”
One can imagine when 20-year-old Tigers ace Daniel raced up for his miraculous Goal of the Year winning sidewinder this season, he honed in on that umpire’s head and let fly.
At least it’s probably what Uncle John believes, and will continue to today, as watches his talented nephew storm towards Richmond’s first shot at a grand final in 35 years.
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Sitting in the palm shade during the Tiwi Island build-up — the steamy limbo between the Top End’s dry and wet seasons — family matriarch Helena Kalippa Rioli reflects on how history appears to be repeating itself.
In ’82, her second eldest of 10 children, Maurice ‘Mr Magic’ Rioli, tore on to the field of the MCG like wildfire, robed in Richmond’s number 17 jersey.
“I didn’t go down (to the MCG) — my husband went down. I just had to stay home and watch it on the TV,” Helena, now 83-years-old, reflects on the moment.
“It was great.”
The Tigers got robbed that day, but Mr Magic was dynamite — tapping into the glorious vein of lightning skills he was known for across the country.
For his efforts, Rioli was awarded the Norm Smith Medal — a historic first for the prestigious gong to go to a player from a losing grand final side.
Today, Helena will once again watch Richmond and a Rioli decked in the number 17 jumper run on to the field for a grand final — this time around it’s her great-grandson, Daniel.
And once more, she’ll be watching it in undisturbed comfort on her TV at home — as the rest of the Tiwi Islands scream into action.
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In the far northern reaches of Tigerland, on grand final week, the spirit of Maurice looms large over proceedings.
Islanders reminisce about the “humble, cheeky” Mr Magic, who died suddenly of a heart attack during a Christmas Day barbecue in Darwin in 2010. He was just 53.
“We were ready to have our midday Christmas lunch, and he didn’t make it,” says his mother, Helena. “And they all got shock, all at home.”
Tiwi politician Lawrence Costa, who shares family with Maurice and counts him as a mentor, was one of the thousands devastated by the news.
“It certainly threw me for six. Not only me, but the Tiwi people, and people around Australia,” he recalls.
“Maurice was a person that never bragged — he always encouraged. He always guided people in regards to what they wanted to do. He was a humble man … Maurice was there for the people.”
Retaining that humility appears to be key in the success of Melville Islands’ AFL superstars — from Cyril ‘Junior Boy’ Rioli to Michael Long, Maurice and Daniel.
Their unbroken connection to the Tiwis and strong, functional family bonds have kept each of them buoyed as the temperature turned up on their national spotlight.
Daniel’s grandmother Sue Leadan — mother of former Essendon player Dean Rioli — says when their beloved sons return to the NT, to go hunting, fishing and hang out with family, it’s a chance for them to “recharge the battery”.
“It’s family time, quality time … it’s really important to all these boys,” she says.
“They come home and get a bit spoiled. And they’re still the same. What you see is what you get.”
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Tiwi trailblazer Michael Long — one Norm Smith winning Garden Point export — was another player able to bloom not due just to raw talent, but thanks to the support of close family ties.
His sister Susie Long, a teacher returning to Pirlangimpi’s school from next term to be near her father, agrees that for these players to succeed, “family is everything”.
“It’s how you’re brought up, who you grew up with and what’s been instilled in you, really, to become the sort of person that you are,” she says.
“… We do everything together, we go fishing, we go camping or we have barbecues. We do it as a family. From the point of view of my brother and Cyril … we’ve always been behind them. Even when (Michael) first went down there, my brother Chris went down with him. So, it was all about being together, having someone there for him, to support him.”
Having family figures like Uncle John Rioli floating about has also no doubt helped young guns like Daniel stay grounded during a rapid, dizzying ascent to the national stage.
John is dead set on reminding Daniel — on the week of his grand final showdown — about how he owes him a new fishing rod.
“Daniel broke one of my thousand dollar fishing rods. And I’m still waiting for my fishing rod, Daniel,” Uncle John cackles.
“I’ve never seen anybody break the handle off a fishing rod, the ones you wind. A fish bit his line, he grabbed the rod and he just rips the handle off the rod. And his younger brother Brayden and myself, we just couldn’t stop laughing at him, ay.
“So I always tell him, ‘I’m still waiting for that thousand dollar fishing rod of mine’ … really, it’s probably just a $35 rod,” Uncle John nearly bursts at the seams.
“I always go for the cheapest rod.”
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The secret of Pirlangimpi’s prodigious success can be seen while taking a drive through the tropical town’s dusty streets.
Tablecloths hung up as banners, jerseys blowing on washing lines, footy slogans scrawled into the red dirt on the windscreens of 4WDs.
Kids kicking anything they can find, be it a beat-up leather ball or a plastic bottle.
Whatever it is, from day one, they’ll kick it.
Perched on a milk crate outside his home, diehard Tigers fan Michael Puruntatameri tells how all the Rioli superstars harked from the same unpretentious start in life.
“Kickin’ around a Coke bottle like that — still the same with these kids like Daniel. They grew up here, kicking around. They’d make like a football, with a bottle and sticky tape,” he says.
“For goalposts, get some cans, you got two goals.”
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At Pularumpi School, where energetic Tiwi kids dart around the playground like electrified cats, Susie Long echoes the sentiments.
“They’re always outdoors, doing stuff. Kicking the ball, playing … still today, kids walking ‘round the street kickin’ a ball around, down the beach doing somersaults, just out and about,” she says.
“… You can’t really afford too much, and you’re only in a little community that’s hard to come in and out of, for some people, so you gotta make do with what you’ve got. And part of it is them making their own fun.”
Come this afternoon on Melville Island, when Daniel Rioli runs out on to the field wearing his namesake’s number 17, football will surpass any notion of ‘fun’ and hit a mark somewhere between religion and madness.
For fans like Michael Puruntatameri — who still hasn’t fully regained his voice since screaming himself hoarse during the semi-final — this is the moment they’ve been waiting for restlessly for more than three decades.
“It’s too long — 35 years. I’m still shaking. I can’t go sleep. And I can’t wait,” he says.
Whatever the outcome, kids will wake up on the Tiwis tomorrow, pick up their faded AFL balls or plastic Coke bottles, and send them soaring effortlessly between two tilted poles.
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