Daniel Rioli can’t help but dream of carrying on the family tradition, winning a Norm Smith Medal
DANIEL Rioli credits wallaby shooting with his dad and steaks and Brooklyn Lager with Damien Hardwick as the perfect support structure as he leads into his first Grand Final.
Richmond
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FOR a player destined to achieve greatness on the MCG in September, life very nearly got in the way for Daniel Rioli.
His pedigree suggests Rioli, 20, could continue the family tradition and win the Norm Smith Medal like his “grandfather” Maurice, and his uncle Cyril, whose heroics Daniel watched as he tore West Coast to shreds in 2015.
Another relative, Michael Long, won the medal in 1993.
The second-year star has dreamt of following in their footsteps.
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The second-year star admits he has dreamt of following in their footsteps as the best player in a winning Grand Final side.
“You do dream of playing your best footy and in the Grand Final and receiving a Norm Smith Medal. That is a goal of mine,” he told the Herald Sun this week.
But if Rioli is now a Richmond player still living in the family home of Mr and Mrs Hardwick, circumstances several times threatened to intervene.
He still remembers arriving at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s College as a 14-year-old, fresh from the Tiwi Islands and woefully underdressed.
“My first night I got there it was so cold. I had a singlet on, shorts on and thongs because I came from Darwin and I didn’t know where Ballarat was, to be honest,” he said.
“It was so cold and I was like, ‘Where am I?’
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“There were many times I wanted to go home and I was so young and I remember calling mum up and I said, ‘It’s too cold, it’s too much’.
“But mum told me Junior (Cyril) is down there playing footy, he did the same thing at Scotch (College) at a young age and wanted to go home and stuck it out.
“It’s been a rollercoaster, but I am pretty grateful.”
Those hard yards saw Rioli, now 20, progressing through the draft ranks as Cyril guided him and inspired him as Daniel regularly caught the train to Melbourne to watch his cousin’s feats first-hand.
By the 2015 national draft everyone knew he had serious talent and tricks. Yet Richmond didn’t actually pick him.
Not with their initial attempt at their first-round selection, or their second.
The Tigers bid for GWS academy midfielder Matthew Kennedy at pick 13, with the Giants matching that bid for a player they are now about to trade.
Then the Tigers tried again, bidding for a Lions academy stripling by the name of Eric Hipwood.
Again that bid was matched.
Finally with their third attempt they took Rioli, taking him off the draft board while eager clubs like North Melbourne hovered with following picks.
If the Tigers were keeping the bastards honest by making academy clubs pay a fair price for their recruits, Rioli could so easily have not been theirs.
“I haven’t spoken to them about that,’’ says Rioli of the third-chance nature of his recruitment.
“It’s pretty hard to imagine if they had got those players and where I would have ended up, but it is what it is.
“I feel like I belong at the club and it’s a good family club. I was so nervous when I got drafted and the bid went on three times but when I got drafted to Richmond the first thing that came to my mind was Maurice playing here.
“That’s what means the most to me. Months later they gave me the No.17 jumper and I had to chose if I wanted to get it and nothing else crossed my mind, I just went for it and took it.”
Now that he is a Tiger, fresh from four breathtaking preliminary final goals, Rioli feels surrounded by family.
The memory of Maurice is still strong despite his death in December 2010, with parents Bradley and Belinda proud he has stayed the course in Victoria.
But meanwhile his host family has taken over the surrogate role as Rioli acclimatises to all that city living holds.
Just as the great Norm Smith hosted teenage recruit Ron Barassi in his backyard bungalow, Damien Hardwick has kept his recruit under his wing.
“Mrs Hardwick, she is a good lady. She is real caring, she is really good to be around. She helps me make my bed at times, if I have trouble with any problem on the family side of things she is there to see if I am OK. But she is a caring person,” he says.
“Her chicken curry and rice is to die for, she nails a mean stir fry — she is a good cook, a very good cook — but Damien controls the barbecue.
“He does lamb chops on the barbecue, Dimma loves a steak.”
As for a tipple: “He loves his beers. Brooklyn Lager, Mountain Goat, Peroni”.
And yet if the trials of a long day at Punt Rd mean Hardwick sometimes needs that wind-down beer, Danielle is the voice of reason.
“He does love to have one to settle his mind down. In his down time he has a couple but Mrs Hardwick is there making sure he doesn’t go overboard with his beers. She is good like that. His max is two or three beers and then straight to bed,” he says with a laugh.
Though happy in the football heartland, the pull of home never quite abates for Rioli.
“I remember when Maurice was alive, we have got a country there on the Tiwi Islands and we go over to our country and spend time camping on the beach and fishing and hunting.”
The idea of Rioli hurtling through the Tiwi Islands bush chasing prey with the same determination he tackles MCG opponents comes to mind.
“(Maurice) was pretty funny as well, I miss him so much. It was a shock to see he went down at (53), especially on Christmas Day.
“I never got to see him play in person, but looking back on his highlights he is a bloody good player.”
Rioli will retreat to the Tiwi Islands again as soon as his finals commitments are over.
He will shoot wallabies with his Dad, fish for barramundi and mud crabs — “mud crab is so good, it’s delicious” — unwind from the stresses of a football season.
“I love going to my country, walking the beach, you can go out crabbing, I love to spear crabs on the beach.
“I am going to spend most of my time on the islands and do what I love — fishing, shooting and hunting.’
“Our country has been passed down through the generations, it’s a Rioli place and it’s beautiful.”
Rioli this year signed a contract extension through to 2019 and can’t see himself ever playing elsewhere.
“They were the first club to draft me and have done so much for me, there is Maurice and my Dad barracks for Richmond. Why would you leave? So hopefully I stay here for as long as I can. That is a goal of mine, to be a one-club player.
He might have just 42 senior games under his belt, but Rioli has been on this stage before.
As a Year 12 kid St Pats won through to the Herald Sun Shield final, but it was relocated off the MCG to Port Melbourne.
Rioli was filthy but then he was chosen in the Allies side that played on the MCG on the morning of that 2015 Grand Final.
He kicked a few goals, generally lit up the MCG, then stayed around as his uncle did something similar.
The desire to win the Norm Smith would seem arrogant in any other second-year player but how can he not have that aspiration given his family history?
“That is a goal of mine, you don’t want to look too far ahead. It may not go your way your first time at a young age,’’ he says.
“But if I can just play my role I hope everything goes to plan.”
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