On the football field, Willem Duursma breaks lines.

On the stage, he remembers them.

It is precisely a week before the AFL national draft – where Willem was selected by West Coast as the No.1 pick – and the 18-year-old is performing to a different audience than what he is used to.

This is the opening night of ‘The Magic Flower’ at the Foster War Memorial Arts Centre in Victoria’s Gippsland region, and Willem has a leading role in the twist on the classic tale of Rapunzel.

A packed house of about 200 locals have turned out to watch the production, put together by Willem’s mum and local dance school supremo, Susie.

For two hours, the fact Willem is the hottest AFL draft prospect in the country is put to one side.

Tonight he will be known as Eugene Fitzherbert – who commonly goes by Flynn Rider – among a high-energy cast of 70 young dancers and actors.

Willem is a wanted man by West Coast and Eugene is equally a wanted man in this tale after helping Rapunzel escape from her tower and to visit the kingdom on her 18th birthday.

At first, Rapunzel is scared by Eugene’s sudden presence in her tower.

After she hits him over the head with a frying pan and knocks him out for a third time, Willem breaks character just briefly in a laugh-out-loud moment.

“Would you stop that?” he asks.

“Any more concussions and I won’t get drafted.”

Rapunzel’s evil Mother Gothel – hilariously played by Willem’s father, Dean – later adds to the injury toll, stabbing Eugene in the back.

But Rapunzel’s tears magically heal Eugene, who lives on so the two can be married and dance the night away.

After the curtains close, a relieved Willem is injury-free backstage and ready for two more nights of the end-of-year show.

It is likely to be his last production – at least for many years – with an AFL career the preference over a play to make it on Broadway.

‘NO CHOICE’

One Foster local who attended the concert recalled asking Willem two years ago if he would choose to pursue football or basketball.

His response at the time was that he was leaning towards basketball.

Willem had represented Vic Country at the under-16 AFL national championships in 2023, but was also a top-five leading scorer in the Victorian Junior Basketball League’s U18 VC Championship competition for the 2022-23 season.

He ended up choosing to focus on football last year.

“I was very good at basketball but I just never had enough time with footy to go into all the different pathways,” Willem said.

While he was allowed to make his own choice between the two ball sports, giving up dancing wasn’t much of an option.

Mum Susie has run the local dance school, Susan Green School of Dance, since she was 18 and Willem and his three older siblings – Xavier, Yasmin and Zane – have all been heavily involved.

“I’ve been doing it for a while, since I was four years old, probably,” Willem said.

“I didn’t have too much of a choice, really. Mum had us fairly driven on dance since we were young and we just kept going from there. She wouldn’t let us quit.”

It is not an acquisition that Susie denies.

“The kids have all grown up with it,” she said.

“As soon as they can walk, they dance and they go right through until they leave the nest. So, this is the last baby.”

Susie can see the benefits of dance when watching Willem’s football.

“When I see him go through traffic, sometimes he blind turns and does those sort of moves,” she said.

“It’s more dance than it is sport. There are just some of those things that I look at and think, ‘Dance has certainly helped him’.”

Father Dean can also see the fancy footwork from dance on the football field, and adds another potential advantage.

“At the very worst, it’ll help him when he goes to nightclubs,” he laughs.

‘SHEEP STATIONS’

As the youngest of four children, Willem had his work cut out to keep up.

And it wasn’t just his siblings who pushed him around during backyard sporting showdowns.

Mum Susie is the self-proclaimed “most competitive” member of the family.

“We would do family basketball and family footy. As soon as you step over the line, it’s on,” Susie said.

“We’ve had lots of injuries. There was one time where ‘Lemma’ (Willem) was only little, under two, and to get the ball I’ve actually knocked him and he cut his head on a log. But I got the goal.

“It’s serious stuff for me. It is sheep stations, absolutely.”

Screen time was limited for the children in favour of outdoor time, with a small football field set up on the family’s property – complete with PVC pipe goalposts.

“They’ve always been outdoor kids,” Susie said.

“The thing they loved to do was ‘Friday Night at the ‘G’. They’d go up on their tiny oval up on the hill and they’d turn on a torch or two and they’d be playing footy in the wet and cold, pretending it was Friday night at the MCG. We created an outdoor shower because I wouldn’t let them back inside. They’d come back covered in mud every time.

All four children also attended Foster Secondary College, where Dean is the principal overseeing about 275 students.

He calls it a “footy factory”.

Xavier (Essendon), Yasmin (Carlton AFLW), Zane (North Melbourne) are just three graduates who have gone on to play football at the highest level.

Ryan Angwin (GWS Giants), Sam Flanders (St Kilda) and Shannon Danckert (Gold Coast AFLW) are other recent players who attended the school, with Willem set to join the club.

“We don’t even have a footy team,” Dean said.

The main football team for the four Duursma siblings was Gippsland Power, where Dean was recently awarded life membership after serving many years as an assistant coach.

Gippsland Power talent manager Scott McDougal has seen all of the four come through the system — and asked if Dean and Susie were open to having another child last year given their success.

“It was three-quarter time in a game and Willem was playing pretty well,” Dean said.

“Scotty strolled over and just handed me his credit card. I said, ‘What’s this?’ He goes, ‘I want you to go and get Susie, take her to Melbourne, have a nice night, go and see a movie, have a nice dinner, stay in a nice hotel and make me some more Duursma’s’.

“I said, ‘Nah, mate, that ship has sailed, I’m sorry’.”

INNER DRIVE TO BE No.1

At least one club was left with a small question mark over Willem’s drive to become the best player in the competition after interviewing him at the draft combine.

But his mum has no similar doubts, having watched him work to try and achieve a dream of being the No.1 pick this year.

“At the start of the year, he sort of set a goal to do that,” Susie said.

“The year started and it was OK, then he sort of lulled a bit and then worked his way back into it.

“We’ve been there to support him, but at the end of the day, it’s all up to him. I think he’s worked hard enough to demonstrate that he’s worthy of that pick.”

West Coast has been in possession of that No.1 pick since round 2, when the Eagles dropped to the bottom spot on the ladder.

It meant there were early discussions – including with manager David Trotter – around Willem’s willingness and readiness to make a potential move interstate.

“I think ‘Lem’ thought about the whole moving out of the state thing a fair bit as the season went on and it looked likely that he was going to go pretty early,” Dean said.

“It was really interesting to watch how he dealt with it all.

A move to the Eagles would mean reconnecting with Harley Reid, who has been a long-time family friend and another source of support this year.

“I’ve known Harley since he played under-12s with Zane,” Willem said.

“I’ve spoken to him a fair bit. He wants me to come over pretty strongly. It’s just the usual every time I chat to him, ‘Just come over, mate’.”

Willem had 20 family and friends attending the first night of the draft with him at Marvel Stadium on Wednesday night.

At the same time, many other locals plan to gather and watch the draft at Foster’s one pub – just a few doors down from the Arts Centre.

As Willem said while playing Eugene Fitzherbert: “I love happy endings”.