'It was very akin to Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star'

Dunstall’s speech was funny and generous and he is doing elder statesman humility better than I remember him doing ‘best player at the club’ humility. I loved his recollection of this training run, as he attempted to reel in his fellow distance duffer, Willie Rioli. Well worth a listen.

I wrote this tribute to Willie Rioli Snr when he died in July of 2022. He was only fifty years old.

Willie as a teenager at St Mary’s

Willie Rioli Sr was Hawthorn’s number 50 pick in the 1990 National Draft. He was the shortest footballer on the list, practically the shortest I’d ever seen, and he was recruited from South Fremantle in the WAFL by new Hawthorn senior coach Alan Joyce, who’d watched him firsthand when he returned to recruiting in 1989-90.

Like many with that famous surname, Willie was skilfull and quick with freakish balance and a knack for reading the game. Before he headed west, he won the NTFL competition best and fairest playing for St Mary’s as a sixteen year old. That’s incredible really. To play against men, at sixteen, and be judged the best player in the Northern Territory’s premier comp. In his first year in WA, he received 17 votes in the Sandover. He looked like a future star.

It must have been daunting to arrive in Melbourne. I was captain of the Hawthorn under 19s in 1990 and while Willie played mainly reserves in ‘91, he dropped back a few times to play with us.  There was a day at Arden Street against Denis Pagan’s North Melbourne when Willie had 23 possessions and booted 4 goals 1. North would eventually win that last under 19s premiership, but Willie steered us to victory that day. He was so clever, a mile above that standard.

He didn’t survive for a second season at Hawthorn. He kicked twenty goals in his reserves games, but he was tiny, I’m guessing 10-15 centimetres shorter than Cyril or Willie Jnr, and his endurance wasn’t good. ‘From memory, Dunstall beat him on a road run’ one official told me this week. ‘That’s never a good sign.’