THE 1982 NORM SMITH MEDALLIST: Maurice Rioli
Maurice Rioli was a sensation with Richmond during the 1980s.
It’s that time of year again: Grand Final day. The best day on the calendar. A day where dreams are played out, or nightmares lived, where moments big or small come to define a footballer’s legacy. Who can forget Carlton’s Wayne Harmes belting the ball to Ken Sheldon in 1979, or fellow Blue David Rhys-Jones’s blanketing role on Hawthorn champion Dermott Brereton in 1987, or the roaming Paul Dear’s dominant display for the Hawks at Waverley Park in 1991, or Andrew McLeod’s blistering runs for Adelaide in 1997 and again in 1998. All are moments that have lived on well after each participant has retired, and all helped secure Norm Smith Medals for those mentioned.
Since Harmes won the first Norm Smith Medal forty years ago, another 37 players have been awarded the medallion named in honour of the VFL/AFL’s Team of the Century coach, the legendary Norm Smith. Hawthorn leads the list with six winners (Gary Ayres and Luke Hodge won two each), West Coast has five, then four to each of Carlton, Essendon and Geelong. Collingwood has three, while North Melbourne, Adelaide (McLeod won both) and the Brisbane Lions have two apiece. Port Adelaide, Sydney and the Western Bulldogs have one.
While the Greater Western Sydney Giants are embarking on their first visit to Grand Final day, their opponent, Richmond, has been there three times in the past four decades and come away with the Norm Smith medallist on each occasion. In their dominant 1980 victory, Kevin Bartlett’s seven goals ensured he received the club’s first ‘Normie’, then, two years later, the silky-smooth Maurice Rioli weaved his way to best-on-ground honours in a losing team. Thirty-five years after that, when the Tigers next saluted on Grand Final day, Dustin Martin put his stamp on one of the greatest individual seasons in League history by helping Richmond break a 37-year premiership drought.
As we ponder and debate who will win this year’s Norm Smith Medal—for what it’s worth, my tip is that Toby Greene will become his club’s first recipient of the award—here’s a look back at Rioli’s 1982 performance, as told in The Norm Smith Medallists (available through www.daneddybooks.com).
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When Maurice Rioli arrived at Richmond’s home ground, the Punt Road Oval, at the beginning of 1982, there was surprisingly little fanfare. Only Phil Egan, the club’s sole Indigenous player at the time, was on hand to greet the South Fremantle centreman. “It was a strange first meeting with Maurice,” Egan recalled. “If it was done in the ’90s or today, there would be 100 press there to greet him. But things were much different in 1982 ... I was the only one there to meet him. He arrived in the carpark via taxi, and I went up and shook his hand and told him who I was—he didn’t know me from a bar of soap! I showed him around, and from that day on we became great friends.”
After storming to the 1980 Premiership, defeating Collingwood by 81 points, the Tigers missed the finals in 1981. The recruitment of Rioli was an important piece of the 1982 Premiership puzzle: he was a proven big-game player who had participated in the previous three West Australian Football League (WAFL) Grand Finals and been judged best-on-the-ground (Simpson Medal) in the latter two.
Rioli was born on 1 September 1957, on Melville Island, off the Northern Territory’s north coast. By his fourth birthday, his family had moved to Darwin, where they remained for more than a decade before returning to the Island. “I spent a fair bit of time playing in the school grounds in Darwin,” Rioli explained, “and also in the streets after school where we organised to pick teams on most days and learnt our skills and our balance, because you were playing on bitumen streets.” According to Jock McLeod (father of 1997-98 Norm Smith medallist, Andrew), Rioli was “a good player right from the word go,” who was “humble” and a “marvel to watch” during his formative years.
Sport was central to Rioli’s early life. Along with football, he also played rugby league, cricket and did boxing in Darwin. He would also go hunting, catching food for his family. Those life skills may have contributed to his spatial awareness and timing on the football field—the other major passion for his mob. “Football was something that all our family and friends and extended family were involved in,” Rioli explained.
South Fremantle’s coach and former Tiger, Mal Brown, recalled Rioli being “a wonderful player” for the club, who had “a beautiful kick, a wonderful handball, always had time, and he was one of the few left-footers who could turn back onto his right foot.” Rioli’s ability to use both sides of his body would unsettle the opposition. “He would simply walk around them, back onto his left foot,” Brown added. Rioli’s boxing training proved an important strength in his football armoury. “I saw him give a bloke a short, sharp jab one day, and the bloke had a black eye for a week,” Brown said. He described Rioli as “very quiet” and “very, very placid,” and ranked him, along with fellow Indigenous star Stephen Michael, in the top couple of players he coached.
Rioli had the same silky skills that nephew Cyril (a Norm Smith medallist himself with Hawthorn in 2015) would later possess, as well as his timing and awareness. The two Riolis shared another common trait: they were outstanding tacklers. “When Maurice got hold of you, it was like a vice-like grip that you couldn’t get out of,” Brown explained. “And he never made many mistakes. You could give him a blast, or give him a kiss, shake him, cuddle him, and his own internal pride would get him going. If he was down and you gave him a bit of a spray, he always lifted. Always.”
Rioli’s first coach at Richmond, Francis Bourke, said that the key to his tackling technique was his “ability to be able to feint and weave like a boxer does.” Plus, Bourke added, “Maurice had unbelievable balance.” When Richmond secured Rioli’s transfer from South Fremantle, so highly did they rate their new recruit they bestowed the club’s most famous jumper number upon him: Jack Dyer’s number 17.
From as early as their uneventful first meeting at Richmond, Egan recognised that Rioli was “very self-assured, but very reserved as well. He was like a contradiction in personality.” According to Egan, Rioli had an aura about him. “He did not have to say anything, one just sensed there was something special about him.” Rioli later conceded he was confident he could make it in the VFL. “I know I came to Richmond with a fairly big reputation,” he said. “I thought I handled it fairly well. The fact was I wanted to perform at the highest level, that’s what drove me.”
But it was a frustrating start at Punt Road for Rioli, due to an ongoing hamstring complaint that had caused him to miss most of the 1981 WAFL season. “I came over with a lot of hamstring injuries,” Rioli recalled. “Back in the Territory, I had never been told how to prepare myself in the area of prevention of injuries and treatment of injuries. I just ran out and did my best. For me, one hamstring would go, and then the next. I had so many problems. When I went to Richmond, I knew I had to do something about the constant injuries. Consequently, I worked harder than I had in my life ... I then hardly missed any games, apart from one or two through knee injuries.”
As two of only a handful of Indigenous players in the VFL at the time, Rioli and Egan recognised they were champions for their people; positions they did not take lightly. “I was one of many Indigenous players who had set the trend for others,” Rioli said. “Before me, I recognise[d] Syd Jackson, [Graham] Polly Farmer and later on Barry Cable. I was proud of the fact that being Indigenous was one of the things that helped me perform at my best.”
Unfortunately, Rioli and Egan were not immune to racist taunts. “Opposition players used racist words to try and slow me down—to put me off my game,” Rioli conceded. But, he added, “I would simply use that in my favour.” From as early as his first WAFL game, Rioli had copped abuse from opponents. “As a youngster I was always getting screamed at by the opposition,” he recalled. “Their object is to scare the daylights out of you. But you have to learn to take it.” The abuse continued when he started his VFL career. “Trying to establish yourself as a League footballer is harder than a lot of people think,” he said. “When you’re an Aborigine, it can be even tougher.”
If the intention was to put Rioli off his game, it backfired, as he was an instant sensation. He had 21 disposals and kicked three goals in his first VFL match, against North Melbourne in round one at the MCG. He also had more than 30 disposals in a game twice and, by season’s end, averaged more than 21 disposals per match. He was a key member of a group of exciting Tiger players, including Geoff Raines, Kevin Bartlett, Michael Roach, Jim Jess, Barry Rowlings, Dale Weightman and skipper David Cloke. It was no coincidence, then, that Richmond, with 18 wins and four losses, stormed to the top of the ladder after the home and away rounds. Rioli had 19 disposals in Richmond’s 23-point victory over reigning premier, Carlton, in the second Semi-Final, which ensured the Tigers were Grand Final favourites against the Blues, who recovered to defeat North in the Preliminary Final.
But the Grand Final could not have started worse for Richmond: Carlton dominated the centre square clearances and kicked three goals in the first five minutes. As frustrations boiled over, the game became a violent and brutal encounter. A big bump by Jess knocked out Ken Hunter, who had started well, and with the Carlton playmaker off the field, Rioli began to impart himself on the game. Working up the field to win possessions, Rioli brought his teammates into the play. Bartlett goaled a few minutes later, then, at the 16-minute-mark, Rioli goaled from 25 metres out as the Tigers began to wrestle back control. Nine minutes later, a brilliant solo effort by Rioli in the forward pocket—where he sharked the hit-out and, in the same action, snapped the ball around his body for a goal—brought Richmond fans to life. After a shaky start, the Tigers only trailed by four points at quarter-time, with The Herald’s Mike Sheahan later stating that “Richmond would have been in serious bother but for the fine first term by Rioli.”
The Tigers appeared to have one hand on the Premiership Cup after dominating the second quarter. They kicked five goals to two and took an 11-point lead into half-time. While Rioli had a quieter second term, Raines, Rowlings and Merv Keane led the way through the middle. But, as they had done in the first quarter, after the main break Carlton again came out stronger. “It was a strange feeling,” Rioli said when reflecting on the third quarter, where the Blues kicked 5.4 to just six behinds. “We were playing well, we were in front at half-time, [then] the next minute they went bang, took the lead and the game was [all but] over.”
In an eventful and match-defining third quarter, proceedings were sensationally halted when a streaker, Helen D’Amico, wearing nothing but a Carlton scarf, ran onto the field at the 10-minute-mark. “I was in the centre when the streaker turned up,” Rioli explained. “I did see her running onto the field and I didn’t know where to look. I made sure I didn’t catch her eye so she didn’t come near me.”
In the midst of that third-quarter onslaught, Rioli was undoubtedly his team’s best player. He always appeared to have an extra second to dispose of the ball, and his decision-making and composure was a standout feature of his play. Despite Carlton’s dominant quarter, the Tigers trailed by just 17 points at three quarter-time. They then kicked two goals in the first five minutes of the last quarter, cutting the margin to just five points. Again, Rioli was the Tigers’ best player for the term, but his efforts were to no avail: Carlton kicked away to win by three goals, 14.19 (103) to 12.13 (85), in one of the truly memorable Grand Finals.
“It was obviously a terribly disappointing feeling losing that Grand Final,” Rioli said. “However, I felt good in the fact that I did my best. I was more numb than anything; I had no feeling, other than the feeling for my fellow players.” Rioli became the first from a losing side to be judged the winner of the Norm Smith Medal, later joined by Gary Ablett (1989, Geelong), Nathan Buckley (2002, Collingwood) and Chris Judd (2005, West Coast). With 18 kicks, one handball, one mark and three goals, Egan was in no doubt that Rioli was a worthy recipient of the Medal.
“Maurice was sublime in the 1982 Grand Final: clearly the best on ground,” Egan recalled. “He did everything in his power to get us over the line, but we had too many good players go missing. In the third quarter, there was this switch in momentum and we went to sleep. Maurice kept going, he really tried ... He put in to the end, but other players couldn’t lift their games enough to get us there ... The way he carried himself, and how he handled himself that day was beautiful to watch.”
Rioli described winning the Medal as “a bitter pill to swallow,” admitting that he “felt a little ashamed to have received it, among the disappointment that surrounded the Richmond team.” As he walked from the dais after receiving the Medal, he “took the medallion off and tried to hide it.” With the passing of time, however, he grew to recognise the significance of what he achieved that day. In 2010, he said: “Now people talk about me being a Norm Smith medallist. I guess it probably means more now because it is in the record books—the fact that Maurice Rioli is a Norm Smith medallist.”
Rioli receives his 1982 Norm Smith Medal from former Melbourne champion Jack Mueller.
Rioli only played in the VFL for six seasons (1982-87) yet his impact was profound. Not only at Richmond, where he won the club’s best and fairest award in each of his first two seasons (1982-83) and was twice All-Australian (1983 and 1986), but for Indigenous players throughout Australia. Indeed, he was recognised as a trailblazer who helped to open the door for the influx of Indigenous players who have graced the game at the highest level in the ensuing years. In 1993, in what was the ‘Year of Indigenous People’, he was invited to present the Norm Smith Medal after the Essendon-Carlton Grand Final. Fittingly, the Medal was awarded to another Indigenous champion in Essendon’s Michael Long, who, during the 1970s and 1980s, had been inspired by Rioli’s footballing exploits. That the Riolis and Longs are related through marriage only added to the occasion.
Sadly, on Christmas Day, 2010, Rioli died suddenly of a heart attack. He was just 53 years old. Egan believes Rioli sits alongside McLeod as the best two Indigenous players he has seen. “When you talk about Maurice and McLeod, you’re talking about [Geelong’s] Patrick Dangerfield and Dustin Martin of today: the cream of the crop, and so consistent. Rarely did they play a bad game, and they performed in the big games—they stood out.”
NOTE: For more on the remarkable life of the late Maurice Rioli, see The Norm Smith Medallists, as well as Rhett Bartlett’s Richmond F.C.: “The Tigers”, A Proud History of a Great Club (Slattery Media Group, 2012) and Sean Gorman’s Legends: The AFL Indigenous Team of the Century (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2011).
Rioli (left) pictured with fellow Norm Smith Medal winners Andrew McLeod (centre with 1997 Premiership Cup) and Michael Long.