It is rare thing for an AFL club to recruit a player coming off a best & fairest year at an opposition club. Even more rare for him for to be a triple premiership player. And for him to be at the peak of his career …. that’s next level rare plus.

But if you were doing a “who am I?” based on these criteria over the lifespan of the Gold Coast SUNS, and wanted to do the research, you’d find there is only one answer. Daniel Rioli.

The 27-year-old dashing defender, picked up from Richmond this week in a giant coup, is one of only six reigning B&F winners to change clubs since 2010 and the start of the SUNS list build ahead of their 2011 AFL debut.

The first? It was key inaugural SUNS signing Michael Rischitelli, who won the 2010 Brisbane B&F before heading down the highway to join the AFL’s 17^th club.

Patrick Dangerfield won the Adelaide B&F in 2015 before going to Geelong in 2016, and Sam Mitchell did likewise at Hawthorn in 2016 before going to West Coast in 2017.

Lachie Neale joined Brisbane in 2019 after winning the Fremantle B&F in 2018, Josh Dunkley joined Brisbane in 2023 after winning the Western Bulldogs B&F in 2022, and now Rioli has followed.

The SUNS landed the 2017-19-20 premiership player via a trade in which the SUNS sent pick #6 and pick #23 in the 2024 National Draft to Richmond for the silky-skilled running defender and four late picks that will help ensure they get star Academy prospect Leo Lombard – at a reasonable price.

Rioli’s move north reunites him with Damian Hardwick, who was not just his three-time premiership coach at Richmond but also a key father figure. So much so that after he joined the Tigers via pick #15 in the 2015 National Draft the much-travelled Rioli lived with the Hardwick family in his first two seasons in the AFL.

Born in Fremantle, Rioli grew up in Pirlangimpi on Melville Island, among the Tiwi Islands off the Northern Territory coast. He did his early high school at St John's Catholic College in Darwin and played football with St.Mary’s in the NTFL before leaving home at 14.

He boarded at St.Patrick’s College in Ballarat, where he was a member of the school team that won the 2015 state schools championship, and played with the North Ballarat Rebels in the TAC Cup, kicking four goals in a final to catch the eye of AFL recruiters.

He represented the NT at the 2015 Australian Under-18 championships, kicked four goals for the Allies against the AFL Academy at the MCG on grand final day, and was recognised as the best all-round performer at the 2015 AFL Draft Combine. He finished second in the 20m sprint, won the 30m repeat sprint and was fourth in the skills-based ‘clean hands’ test.

It was enough for him to rocket up the pecking order ahead of the draft.

Rebels coach David Loader said of Rioli at the time: “Attributes-wise, he’s got the pretty complete package for a player of his size. He’s got exceptional speed, he’s got very, very good endurances, he’s got terrific agility, but he’s also a very, very good kick – distance and accuracy – and he’s got a great weighted kick for a player who is not a big guy”.

And he was a Rioli – a member of a special football family that now boasts six AFL players and has brought enormous excitement to the AFL in recent decades.

Maurice Rioli Snr, Daniel’s uncle, played 118 games at Richmond from 1982-88 and is part of AFL history on two counts – he is the only player to win the Norm Smith Medal in his first season, doing so in ’82 against Carlton, and was the first to do so in a losing side.

He also won the Richmond B&F in his first two seasons wearing the #17 jumper made famous at Tigerland by AFL Hall of Fame legend Jack Dyer which was later passed on to Daniel.

Dean Rioli, another uncle, played 100 games at Essendon from 1999-2006 and in November 2022 became the Bombers’ first Indigenous board member, while cousin Cyril Rioli was a 189-game superstar at Hawthorn from 2008-18, winning four premierships, three All-Australian blazers, the 2015 Norm Smith Medal, and the 2009 AFL Goal of the Year.

After Daniel on the family tree and still playing in the AFL are Willie Rioli, a cousin of the SUNS newcomer, a key member of West Coast’s 2018 premiership side in a career that has spanned 90 games at West Coast and Port Adelaide since 2017, and Maurice Rioli Jnr, Daniel’s uncle (although six years younger), who has played 36 games at Richmond since 2021.

Daniel Rioli was something of a wildcard as the football world gathered at the Adelaide Convention Centre on 24 November 2015 for the National Draft, the first in which there was to be ‘live bidding’ on father/son and northern academy prospects.

As history shows, it was a draft of hits and misses. Jacob Weitering, a 2024 Carlton All-Australian, went at No.1 before Josh Schache, delisted this month after 76  games with Brisbane, Western Bulldogs and Melbourne, went at #2.

Sydney took Academy star Callum Mills at #3 after a bid from Melbourne, Clayton Oliver was #4 to Melbourne before Darcy Parish went #5 to Essendon. Pick #6 was Aaron Francis, who has battled to 74 games at Essendon and now Sydney, and at #7 GWS took Academy player Jacob Hopper, now at Richmond, after a Gold Coast bid.

At #8 the Gold Coast took Callum AhChee, now a 143-game 2024 premiership player at Brisbane, and at #9 Melbourne took Sam Weideman, now a 76-gamer at Essendon.

At #11 Adelaide 96-gamer Wayne Milera split Carlton Coleman Medallists Harry McKay (#10) and Charlie Curnow (#12) before Matthew Kennedy, a GWS Academy product, went at #13 to the Giants before moving on to Carlton and this week the Western Bulldogs.

At #14 Brisbane took Sunshine Coaster Eric Hipwood, before the Rioli tradition continued at Richmond via pick #15.

At the time Hardwick had been in charge at Punt Road for six years. They’d missed the finals in 2010-11-12 and been eliminated in week one in 2013-14-15 after finishing 5^th-8^th-5^th on the home-and-away ladder. So as Rioli arrived Hardwick, with a 66-2-67 record, was bunkering down for a fight.

Rioli, described in the 2016 AFL Guide as “a small forward with polished skills and an elite mix of endurance and speed”, debuted in Round 1 and was pretty much a fixture thereafter as the club went on an extraordinary run of success.

By the time the 2020 Covid season ended at the Gabba Rioli had played 95 games, including 12 finals, for a 64-1-30 record, and the youngest of 14 Richmond players who had been part of each leg of the 2017-19-20 hat-trick under Hardwick.

He went 34-3-51 in 88 games over the next four years, becoming one of the game’s most dynamic attacking players off half back on route to a win in the 2024 Tigers B&F, when he polled 40 votes to beat Nick Vlastuin (38) and Tony Nankervis (36). This was after he’d finished 10^th in the B&F in 2019, was 2^nd by one vote to ex-SUN Tom Lynch in 2022 and 5^th in 2023.

The only Richmond player to play every game this year and on a 76-game streak, he was first at the club for disposals and uncontested possessions, third for rebound-50s, intercepts and metres gained, and fourth for tackles.

He also led the Tigers in running bounces with 54 and was fifth in the League behind only Sydney’s Chad Warner (80), Port’s Zak Butters (61), Geelong’s Max Holmes (60) and Carlton’s ex-SUN Adam Saad (58).

Now, after nine years in the AFL, the player chosen at #15 in the Draft Class of 2015, with career stats of 2812 possessions, 109 goals, 553 tackles and 183 running bounces, ranks second for games behind Sydney’s Tom Papley and equal with Melbourne’s Clayton Oliver, and is ninth for possessions, goals and goal assists despite playing a lot of time behind the ball.

In a pointer to his utility value, he is the No.1 ball-winner among the 2015 draftees who have kicked 100-plus goals and is ranked eighth overall for tackles.

He is fifth for wins behind Papley (111), Oliver (103), pick #25 Josh Dunkley (101) and Hipwood (99), and with 183 heads a running bounce count in which StKilda turned Essendon utility Jade Gresham (127) is the only other player beyond 100.

And he shares with ex-teammate Nathan Broad the honor of being the only triple premiership player.

In other highlights of his time at Richmond, Rioli kicked the 2017 AFL Goal of the Year in Round 3 against West Coast at the MCG, when he kept the ball in play up against the boundary line and kicked a right foot banana on the run from 35m.

He won enormous praise from then captain Trent Cotchin for his leadership in the 2017 premiership campaign. “He’s been nothing short of outstanding – the way he’s taken other (draftees) under his wing has been really special,” Cotchin said.

And in 2019 he designed with his parents the Richmond ‘Dreamtime at the G’ jumper, which featured imagery that was central to his family and the Tiwi Islands.

He enjoyed a 5-4 record against the SUNS and is 9-2 at People First Stadium, and polled his first Brownlow Medal vote in his 51^st game against the SUNS on the coast in 2018, when he had 25 possessions as teammate Jack Riewoldt kicked 10 goals.

And, in one of the most memorable SUNS home games, he had his first 30-possession game in Round 17 2022, when a Noah Anderson goal after the siren snatched a two-point win after they’d been 21 points down 10 minutes into the last quarter.

Rioli had a career-best 36 possessions in his 181^st game for Richmond this year, and, fittingly, bid farewell to the Tigers with 30 possessions and two goals at the MCG in his 183^rd and last game – against Gold Coast. It is the only time he’s had 30-plus and kicked two.

It was a special player/coach moment between two men who had shared so much in black and yellow from 2016-23, were separated in 2024 and will be reunited in 2025. And, much to the delight of both and the excitement of SUNS fans, they’ll be wearing red and yellow.