{"id":749440,"date":"2026-06-20T20:05:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T20:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749440\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T20:05:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T20:05:22","slug":"from-little-things-bigger-things-are-set-to-grow-for-lingiaris-great-grandson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749440\/","title":{"rendered":"From little things, bigger things are set to grow for Lingiari\u2019s great-grandson"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Should Sonny Smiler\u2019s name be called out in either the national or rookie drafts this November, the teenager will be the first member of the Gurindji people, and the first footballer from the Northern Territory community of Kalkarindji, to make it to the AFL.<\/p>\n

Smiler, though, cannot lay claim to being the most recognised, or venerated of the Gurindji, or of his own family.<\/p>\n

\"SonnySonny Smiler jnr comes from a famous family and has big dreams of his own.Matt Turner<\/p>\n

In 1966, his great-grandfather, Vincent Lingiari, instigated what would become known as the Wave Hill walk off, when Lingiari took on the owner of the Wave Hill property, Lord Vestey, setting off a chain of events that culminated in the Whitlam government\u2019s historic awarding of land to the Gurindji.<\/p>\n

Gough Whitlam\u2019s gesture of pouring soil through Lingiari\u2019s hands in August 1975 would become possibly the most-celebrated moment for the lands rights movement \u2013 known to millions through Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody\u2019s anthem (performed at Whitlam\u2019s funeral and often sung by Kelly\u2019s musical compatriots), From Little Things Big Things Grow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Smiler is being watched by AFL clubs this Sunday, as a member of the Allies team playing against South Australia in the national under-18 championships in Adelaide.<\/p>\n

\"ThenThen prime minister Gough Whitlam pours soil into the hand of traditional landowner Vincent Lingiari\u00a0in 1975.Mervyn Bishop<\/p>\n

AFLNT is optimistic that Smiler will be drafted, in what his parents Sonny Smiler (snr) and Sophia Donnelly-Patterson say would be a great moment for Kalkarindji, where he has grown up, not far from the Wave Hill property where Sonny\u2019s father was born.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe started when he was only two or three years old,\u201d said Sonny\u2019s mother, Donnelly-Patterson, whose background is Warlpiri, and is a relative of that people\u2019s famed football personage, the prodigiously gifted ex-Melbourne forward Liam Jurrah. \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t let go of footballs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"It\u2019sIt\u2019s the quality of Smiler\u2019s possessions that\u2019s so impressive, rather than the quantity.Matt Turner<\/p>\n

Smiler is less than 180 centimetres tall (listed as 176, but seems taller in the flesh), and, as with many Territory prospects, is slender in build. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s done weights yet,\u201d said his father, who is taller than 190cm, according to Patrick Bowden (the ex-Bulldog and Tiger), one of Sonny\u2019s mentors. Sonny\u2019s parents reckon he\u2019s still growing upwards.<\/p>\n

Another perspective\"Paul<\/a><\/p>\n

But his skill is excellent \u2013 as I saw when watching the NT under-18 team play the far-more drilled and stronger-bodied Western Jets last month; once, Smiler launched from the edge of the 50-metre arc on his preferred left boot for a goal; it was his quality, rather than quantity, that impressed.<\/p>\n

From talking to his parents and Bowden, one of the distinguished Richmond clan who reside in the NT, Smiler would appear to have three factors in his favour as a prospective draftee.<\/p>\n

One is his diligence. \u201cHe trains every day,\u201d said his father, who calls the son \u201cJunior\u201d (Mum refers to him as Sonny). Every week, as his father explained, Sonny runs home from his training venue, eight kilometres away. \u201cSophie follows him in a car all the way back,\u201d said dad. \u201cHe never stops.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Smiler hasn\u2019t had the benefits of weights training as yet, his capacity to run long distances is evident in his three victories in the NT\u2019s All-Schools cross country championships. AFL club recruiters sometimes stamp a kid\u2019s passport in the negative on the grounds that, \u201cHe can\u2019t run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Increasingly, NT youngsters found it difficult to gain the nod from AFL clubs, irrespective of their talents, if they are not based in Darwin, where the under-18 representative team and much of the coaching and administrative resources are centred; some who\u2019ve made it in the AFL have been sent to boarding schools in Victoria in their mid-teens.<\/p>\n

\"SmilerSmiler in action for the AFL national academy under-18 side against North Melbourne\u2019s VFL team.AFL Photos<\/p>\n

Smiler is boarding at Haileybury College\u2019s Darwin campus, several hours\u2019 drive from Kalkarindji.<\/p>\n

The AFL and NT officials are well aware of the challenges that face many talented Indigenous teenage football prospects, not least that of moving to major cities and to the relentless rigours of AFL clubs, who had major cutbacks in football spending during COVID that Richmond and other parties argued would be detrimental to the Indigenous young footballers and their cultural needs.<\/p>\n

Smiler, however, has the advantage, as his parents noted, of having spent two years in Melbourne from the age of 12, when he went to the Melbourne Indigenous Transition School in Richmond (based then at Richmond\u2019s Punt Road, to return in 2027 in the redeveloped William Cooper Centre), and then attended Brighton Grammar.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Football<\/a><\/p>\n

Should he land in Melbourne \u2013 or any capital city \u2013 he won\u2019t find it difficult to adjust. \u201cHe\u2019s used to how the city works\u201d said his father. \u201cHe can live like a local.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowden, who mentored Smiler as part of the Clontarf program for Indigenous youngsters (which uses sport to help in completing secondary school), is confident that Sonny has the traits \u2013 running, skill and dedication \u2013 that the clubs crave. \u201cHis endurance is well above anyone of his age [in NT pathways].\u201d<\/p>\n

Smiler did not gain a mountain of possessions for the Allies last week against Vic Country, when GWS academy product Ethan Matthews<\/a> pushed his claim for the top 10 in the draft.<\/p>\n

Smiler, who turns 18 in October and is finishing year 12 (he barracks for Collingwood), is well aware of his great-grandfather\u2019s legacy. One of the NT\u2019s federal seats is named Lingiari<\/a> in honour of the Gurindji leader.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Sonny snr and his sisters wrote to then prime minister Scott Morrison requesting that the electorate of Lingiari be preserved, when there was the possibility of an electoral redistribution wiping it off the electoral map (it has remained). His sister Rosie co-wrote an account of the Wave Hill walk off with Indigenous leader and union official Thomas Mayo.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s aware his great-grandfather was a leader of the walk off,\u201d said Sonny snr, who was born in 1975, the year of Whitlam\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n

The NT folk know there are no guarantees in the national draft. But they \u2013 and Sonny Smiler\u2019s people \u2013 are cognisant of what his landing in the AFL would represent, to have a representative in the competition. It might inspire others.<\/p>\n

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\"JakeJake Niall<\/a> is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-749440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}