Traded Nathan Djerrkura (2007-2010)

Scotch boys' dream time
By Greg Baum
August 4, 2005

Nathan Djerrkura and Cyril Rioli at Scotch College earlier this week ahead of tomorrow's big game against Melbourne Grammar.

All the strands of Australian football history will be woven together tomorrow afternoon when two young indigenous footballers from the Northern Territory play for Scotch against Melbourne Grammar in their annual traditional match replicating the code's first game in 1858.

One is Cyril "Junior" Rioli, from Melville Island in the Tiwi group, nephew of Norm Smith medallists Maurice Rioli and Michael Long. Left-footed Rioli, 15, a year 10 student, has distinguished himself in the first 18 this season, kicking 10 goals one day against Carey Grammar and eight against Caulfield Grammar.

The other is year 11 student Nathan Djerrkura, 16, from Gove on the edge of Arnhem Land, where Friday afternoons were for fishing.

Melbourne Grammar will be captained by Ned Morrison, grandson of Collingwood premiership captain and football media pioneer Lou Richards. Like the NT boys, Morrison's family goes back a bit.

The match coincides happily with this week's announcement of the Indigenous Team of the Century, at which Long, the game's great contemporary Aboriginal activist, declared: "Australian rules has become truly the only level playing field." When two young men from the farthest outback don the colours of one of the pillars of the Melbourne establishment as it plays for the prized Cordner-Eggleston Cup, his words will surely echo.

Rioli and Djerrkura, like all pioneers, have had to take their courage in their hands. "It was my mum's idea to come down here," said Rioli. "She kinda forced me!"

It is a telling statement, for Aboriginal families do not lightly sacrifice their togetherness. A cousin who came with Rioli last year returned home after a week, but Rioli confounded expectations at Scotch by persevering alone for three terms, a heroic feat at 14. "First week it was a bit hard, but I got over it," he said. Djerrkura arrived this year, also at his mother's insistence, still mourning his father, who died last year. He went home recently for the anniversary ceremonies, which reportedly was unsettling for him, but he insisted he was here to stay. "I get homesick quite often, because I come from a small community," he said. "I just think ahead, think of the future. Great opportunity. Make the most of it."

Both boys have eyes on the AFL, and the AFL on them.

Rioli and Djerrkura are at Scotch on a form of scholarship that had its origins nearly 10 years ago when Dr Rob Smith, biology teacher and head of football at Scotch, was looking for a chance for the footballers to broaden their horizons in the way that cricket, rugby and hockey teams did on overseas trips. A Scotch team played in Darwin, made a day trip to the Tiwi Islands, formed a link with Xavier College on Bathurst Island and were filled with wonder about the alien culture. More trips followed, then a team from Darwin came to play Scotch's first 18 one lunchtime, watched by the whole school. "These really talented, very black boys playing our firsts," remembered principal Dr Gordon Donaldson, "and the strange thing was that the school was supporting the visitors! The thing that united the two cultures that were so far apart was footy. That really opened my eyes to the whole concept of what could be achieved."

Scotch began to take in two boys each year, for a month at a time. They were chosen by their local communities, who made their judgements not just on football ability, but school attendance record and leadership potential.

Scotch put them up in the boarding house, ran a modified academic program, encouraged flair for art and design, taught groundstaff skills and co-opted enthusiastic Essendon for football training.

"It's rather contrary to the traditional scholarship idea, where you pluck someone, bring them here and turn them into a Melbourne Scotch boy - and they never go back," said Dr Donaldson. "That's not what their communities wanted, and they're quite right. All along, they were looking to develop people who would go back to their community and make a difference."

This, said Dr Donaldson, should disprove suspicion that the scheme was mere patronage. "We're not saying we've got the answer to their problems," he said "It's actually a very co-operative relationship."

Football bridges the gulf between cultures, but it has not yet filled in all the blanks. No one at Scotch pretends that the exchange has worked like a dream, nor that it has not sometimes been confronting for all. The NT boys have felt cold, isolated and homesick, the Scotch staff inadequate.

The principal of Bathurst Island's Xavier came to give a crash course on customs.

"We had to know that if we spoke to one of the boys and he didn't look us in the eye, he wasn't being rude. In fact, he was being polite," said Dr Donaldson. "And that he really wouldn't want to shake hands. And that if he decided he had to go home, we weren't to be offended. We just had to accept that."

Dr Donaldson had had to deal with his own culture shock 20 years previously when he awoke on his first Saturday morning at Scotch after arriving from the UK to a cacophony of constant whistles and strange shouts coming from the football ground. He is sufficiently versed now to remark appreciatively on the "exquisite" skills of Rioli.

Dr Smith, the scheme's champion-in-chief, said he also had had much to learn about the the ways of the NT boys. One was their loose perception of time; sometimes, returning from home, they are days late. "But they always get here," he said. "I'm learning that." Another was their disdain for titles. Another was their inability to refuse a request. "They'll say yes to everyone," he said. Financial difficulty is a constant concern: air fares are prohibitive for most families.

Djerrkura arrived during a cold snap in February and remarked to Dr Smith on the shivering temperature. Dr Smith regretted to have to tell him that it would get a lot colder still.

At training this week, he wore leggings. He and Rioli know of today's game that it is the biggest of the year, and that the forecast top temperature is 11.

Rioli and Djerrkura have taken the Scotch scheme to a new level, staying not weeks but - prospectively - years. The challenges remain. Both say their communities are excited for them, but Dr Donaldson suspected that they were under a burden of expectation, too. Rioli's very name guarantees that. Both feel they are blazing a trail.

The process of mutual enlightenment is far from complete. Even this week, a well-meaning parent was heard lauding the understanding the scheme had promoted, but with this ill-advised observation: "They're just like normal people." Kids learn quicker: as Rioli and Djerrkura ran the gauntlet of this reporter's questions and teammates' frisky interjections, they looked to be two of the boys.

Click to expand...

Bigger fish to fry

Date: November 17 2006


Paul Kennedy

THREE mongrel dogs follow Nathan Djerrkura through a river outlet wriggling into the Arafura Sea. If they could calculate the danger of nearby crocodiles, they wouldn't be yapping so freely through the receding water.

"You get one or two crocs, but not very often," Djerrkura said. "They take a dog every now and then."

Then he runs off, 174 centimetres and getting smaller, dashing past a group of children spearing fish in the shallows of the clearest, bluest water anyone has ever seen. Arnhem Land is not so much a paradise lost as one found by very few.

"People wonder why I get home sick," Djerrkura says later under a giant frangipani, bathing in its familiar perfume.

Right now the Top End is dry, but rain's promise adds natural urgency to the air he breathes. Up to a dozen AFL clubs have spoken to Nathan Djerrkura. Although he's spent the past two years in a Melbourne boarding school, he is back home counting the days until the draft.

"I can feel the nerves building but this is the best place I can be," he said.

Djerrkura's family, indeed the whole Yirrkala community (population 800), is proud of the teenager, as they were of his father, before his political career ended tragically.

Gatjil Djerrkura was one of the most prominent Aboriginal activists in the land. He devoted 54 years to advancing indigenous Australia. In 1984 he was awarded the Medal in the General Division of the Order of Australia. He served as ATSIC chairman from 1996-99.

In 2004, the reconciliation advocate died of a sudden heart attack. Like many Aboriginal men, he went in his prime, leaving yet another leadership void. A nation exhaled, a sorrowful wind washing over the territory.

His son, about to be schooled at one of Victoria's most prestigious institutions, pondered life without his father or the Arafura Sea.

Nathan Djerrkura was at Scotch College just weeks ago. Graduating. Boys wearing grey vests, red ties and tall socks moved about the school campus outside his lodgings.

He lifted dumbbells in his room for the last time. A whiff of rain came through the window and shunted his mind instantly home, to wet Christmases, bare feet, children, football, puddles, cackles, love and despair. Loneliness joined him and he summoned an image of his family's totem, the spirit carrier.

His is the Giant Trevally, a marauding prince of the territory's oceans and the Northern reaches of Nathan Djerrkura's soul. "It looks after me."

It swims through his art, more beautiful in paint than reality, and blows bubbles in the salt water buoying his ambitions. A photograph of his father was pinned above his study desk. Gatjil Djerrkura's image often tipped him into a well of sadness, before pride winched him out.

"He always wanted to help his people and I want to follow in his footsteps and help my people," Nathan said, his eyes resting thoughtfully on his words. "But he did it in a political way. I want to do it through the AFL because for the majority of Aboriginal kids it's their indigenous game.

"Hopefully they can see where I've come from, such a small community, and how far I've made it. Hopefully they can follow in my footsteps."

Nathan's graduation from Scotch was a remarkable achievement. Head of sport Robert Smith called it the highlight of his 20-year career. "I know how much hard work and struggle he has gone through to get there."

Smith bonded with Nathan halfway through his first semester, when he was ready to chuck it in and go home, away from the loneliness and the bloody cold. Sensing despair, he took his student to a cafe and the pair talked about living and smelled coffee and felt Melbourne.

Smith said he would support Nathan's next decision. It was an important latte; Nathan stayed and persisted and flourished.

Such was the student's appreciation for his teacher he invited Smith and his family home for a warm holiday. They went fishing and sought turtles. Smith was later adopted into the Djerrkura tribe. He is forever Nathan's honorary brother.

The Djerrkura family knew then Nathan was transformed. His mother Jenny was particularly moved. Cheeky and honest, she desperately wants her son to be drafted because she knows his sacrifices. She also knows footy and says her youngest boy can "break the lines".

Brother Damien Djerrkura empathised with Nathan's struggle. Eight years Nathan's senior, Damien trained as an athlete at the AIS and was once a charge of Cathy Freeman's coach. He was to run the 400 and 800 metres Sydney Olympics selection trials before homesickness chased him down.

Damien now works as a senior training officer in partnership with a bauxite mining company, helping young men earn. Nathan is carrying his brother's sporting hopes. They wear identical giant trevally tattoos.

At Scotch, Nathan (11 seconds in the 100 metres) resisted calls to run without a ball. He loves footy and art, which also blooms on the Djerrkura family tree. Sister Fiona is a talented painter, who worked with the team that designed the Aboriginal patterns on the Qantas 747.

Nathan's paintings are so impressive he's preparing to be interviewed for an elite university scholarship in Melbourne. His art teacher said he once painted traditionally flat patterns but now superimposes motifs, merging western ideals of space on canvas.

To the uncultured gaze, his paintings are calm yet lively, turtles swimming through the ocean, fish, serpents, goannas, rocks and coral. "People paint what they think," he says. "I'll never stop painting."

Talking to Nathan Djerrkura leaves you wondering what he will become. Could he be the next Michael Long? Is that too much? He has to be a hell of a footballer.

Kevin Sheehan, the AFL's talent guru, says Djerrkura may "go top 30" in tomorrow week's draft. Clubs will snatch taller kids first before measuring the rest on hunches and statistics.

Djerrkura popped eyes at the draft camp, particularly in sprint and endurance testing, a light aircraft with a jet engine. His under-18 national carnival made him the Northern Territory's only All-Australian. "You can't ignore that speed," Sheehan said.

To examine his chances one needs to watch on tape an exhibition game played by draft hopefuls in September. The finest teenage football is delightful. The kicking is instinctive, the handballing quicksilver, the passages of movement slick and unwashed. And there are snapshots of brilliance, played out like short trailers to blockbusters you just can't miss, no way!

It must be said Nathan Djerrkura wasn't the only boy dazzling. A Queensland hill named Kurt Tippett marked bombs as easily as he would mark time. Midfielders delivered passes as polished as church floors. And then Djerrkura flew like a spear through the centre.

He was still in defence when someone flipped him the ball. The lad chasing him died after Djerrkura's second bounce. Another opponent came from the side, but Djerrkura shimmied sideways and into more space.

If you watch the tape of the evasion with the sound up, you can hear the spontaneous responses from spectators (keep in mind there were only recruiters in the stands, men who were impressed by little, save for a truly exceptional athletic feat).

"Ooaaww," was all they said.

Djerrkura had another bounce and was now just beyond the goal square. He had run 100 metres. Without another soul to baulk, he kicked a goal. It appeared to be the least satisfying part of his display because it meant he could run no further with the ball. Captivating.

Back in the pristine saltwater of Nathan Djerrkura's backyard, the young man is spear-fishing the time away and saying goodbye to his eventful childhood forever.

"People can stand in one place all day waiting for one fish to come," he explained of the traditional hunt, his weapon and eyes paralleled and poised. "And then when the fish comes, you have to make the most of it."

with ANTHONY HOWARD

Click to expand...

LifeSpan-Void said:

hope he doesn't get homesick to the point of leaving mid-season.

Click to expand...

Turbocat said:

Worth P25 , who knows but in the end , as long as he settles in to Geelong and our weather , it will be considered a good pick

Click to expand...

CatmanForever said:

and someone had to go too far.....fishman I know you probably didn't meant it but your post is offensive really

Click to expand...

JUBJUB said:

How is it offensive ?

Apart from the hairdo and the ears they don't look alike,but there's nothing offensive in comparing the two.

Click to expand...