Ask most football people about the famous Rioli family and Darwin at the same time and they’ll tell you it’s a perfect match. They just go together, like fish and chips, or salt and pepper.
But actually that’s not right. And as the SUNS head to the Northern Territory capital this week for a two-game stay against the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night and Hawthorn five days later, the SUNS’ boom recruit Daniel Rioli will be on a private family mission.
The Rioli family, which boasts a combined 745 AFL games via Maurice Snr, Cyril, Dean, Daniel, Willie and Maurice Jnr, has played only once in Darwin. And it wasn’t the normal celebration of football that AFL visits to the NT normally are.
The only time the name ‘Rioli’ has appeared on an AFL teamsheet at Marrara Oval, the long-time home of football in Darwin now known as TIO Stadium, was during Covid in 2020.
It was when Daniel played for Richmond against Essendon in the Round 13 Dreamtime at the ‘G game which was relocated from the MCG when Melbourne was in lockdown.
It was a shortened game and the restricted crowd of 5,401 was the second-smallest among 28 AFL games in Darwin. Rioli had 16 possessions and a goal in a 10.13 (73) to 10.1 (61) Tigers win.
Richmond, under coach Damien Hardwick, gleefully took the win on their way to a third flag, but it wasn’t real. It wasn’t what AFL games in Darwin are meant to be. This week and next week it will be very real.
Rioli, born in Fremantle and raised on Melville Island before heading to Victoria at 14 to finish his schooling in Ballarat, will head north coming off a huge personal buzz which slid under the football radar.
The QClash against Brisbane at the Gabba last weekend was his 190th AFL game and took him past Cyril Rioli to the top of the family games list.
Cyril played 189 games for Hawthorn from 2008-18 after Maurice Snr had played 118 with Richmond from 1982-87 and Dean played 100 for Essendon from 1999-2006. Willie, who debuted at West Coast in 2018, has played 98 games with West Coast and Port Adelaide, while Maurice Junior, who debuted at Richmond in 2021, has reached 40 games.
It’s a complicated family tree, which started with Maurice Rioli Snr, who had three footballing brothers – Sebastian, Willie Snr and Cyril Junior.
Maurice Jnr is the son of Maurice Snr, and, as much as it seems a little odd, Cyril, known simply as Cyril, is the son of Cyril Jnr. Dean is the son of Sebastian, and Willie is the son of Willie Snr. Daniel is the son of Bradley Rioli, a nephew of Maurice Snr, and the nephew of Maurice Jnr, who is his uncle despite being more than five years younger than him.
Ironically, Daniel Rioli’s only game in Darwin was part of a double-header during Covid when the SUNS played the following night against Carlton. In David Swallow’s 150th game they went down by 33 points.
It was the SUNS’ second game at TIO Stadium after they’d played the Western Bulldogs’ there in Round 8 2012, when, under inaugural coach Guy McKenna, they fell by 38 points to the Western Bulldogs. It was Alex Sexton’s AFL debut and the first game in red and yellow for Andrew McQualter, now coach of the West Coast Eagles.
The 2020 Covid double-header was a pre-cursor to the SUNS existing arrangement whereby the club plays two home games a year in Darwin. And, significantly, it was the SUNS’ second and last loss in Darwin. They’ve won six in a row in the heat and humidity since then.
The winning streak has come against Hawthorn and North Melbourne in 2022, the Western Bulldogs and Adelaide in 2023, and North Melbourne and Geelong in 2024, and includes four wins by more than 10 goals.
The score of 26.8 (164) against Geelong in Darwin last year was the highest in club history, and four of their 12 biggest wins have come in Darwin. In their last six games in Darwin, the SUNS have a percentage of 170.3%.
Port Adelaide’s Kane Cornes and Danyle Pearce, who played with Port Adelaide and Fremantle, hold the TIO Stadium games record at 10. Of the SUNS players, Sam Collins has played most at eight – once for Fremantle and seven times for his current club.
The Bulldogs’ Brad Johnson has the goalkicking record of 17, from ex-Sun Jack Lukosius (15) and current Sun Ben King (14).
Lukosius shares the record for most goals in a game at TIO Stadium at five – he did it three times – with current Sun Bailey Humphrey, West Coast’s Jack Darling (now at North), Port’s Paul Stewart, Carlton’s Brendan Fevola, Johnson and Brad Miller, then playing at Melbourne and now a SUNS assistant coach.
New SUNS captain Noah Anderson set the single-game possession record at TIO Stadium last year with 42 to head Cornes (41) and the Bulldogs’ Ryan Griffen (40). Sam Flanders and ex-Bulldogs captain Daniel Cross are next at 37.
