HIGH FLYER

The story of Darius Plummer is one of the
'local boy does good' variety.
This local man comes from a family of high
achievers who excel at sport, literature, music
and other creative arts.
He and his father Ronald Plummer spoke with Gemma Buxton

I started playing football in 1991, with the Junior Eagles team in Tennant Creek. Then in 1997 I went up to Darwin to play for St Marys Football Club, a couple of us Tennant Creek boys went up to join the team, the others were Blake and Ryan Fowler, Wayne Bahr-Kelly, Paul Hogan and Kim Bracken.
The St Marys Football Club contacted me and asked me to go up there. I played my first game against the Warratahs and I impressed the N.T selectors who were there to pick eight or nine fellas from St Mary's to play for the Thunder team.
It was hard to train for the Thunder side. We had to train really hard and show a lot of commitment to the team. We had to be at training everyday and we had to be on time. The Thunder Football team is the Territory Under 18's side.
I got a scholarship from the Northern Territory Institute of Sports and I got picked to play for the Territory Thunder team. That meant that we had to work really hard - move away from home.
For the first three weeks I was staying with friends and then I went on to board at Kormilda College. It's really good there because they take us to training everyday and made sure we get there.
In the Thunder team we have scratch matches to go up to the National Championships. We've been to Brisbane and then we train really hard and we'll go to Adelaide. We train for about 5 or 6 weeks and then we go away to Brisbane and Melbourne. In the Championship, we play against each State representative, like Victoria, Qld and A.C.T. I have been to Melbourne to play but I didn't go to Adelaide or Brisbane because I was injured. All this training led up to the National Championships at the end of July.
Now we're training with N.T.I.S, doing weights, nutrition and we learn how to confront cameras with the media and how to talk to media, how to speak clearly.
I'm still doing schooling at Kormilda College. I have been away for about seven months now, but it's been pretty hard moving away from home and going up to Darwin. It's a really good experience though to go away from home to the big cities, it's just great!
The hardest thing was moving to Darwin for me. In the future I want to go away to Adelaide and play for the Alberton Magpies, they're associated with Port Power. Alberton have offered me to go down there so I'm going to play in Adelaide for the1999 season.
I play in forward line, the main object there is just to kick the ball through the big sticks! I'll finish school in Adelaide next year, I'm 17 and I've got to finish my schooling and then I'll play footy in Adelaide. I'm hoping to get drafted for an AFL club and play professionally. It's just round the corner I think. I've just got to keep my head to it and just keep on working hard.
Footballers who I really aspire to are the Aboriginal footballers such as Gavin Wanganeen, Michael Long, Michael (Magic) Mclean and of course my Dad because they're great players!

...and as his dad says:
I still play football myself. Darius is a role model for young footballers but to get out of Tennant Creek, it was very hard for him. It was hard to leave his family, but it's just something he had to do.
He's from a remote area and it took him a lot of time to settle in the Big Smoke. He played five games for St Marys and got in the Grand Final and they actually won that. So he's done really well in Darwin, he was selected for the Territory Under 18's on a trial basis first, but they looked at his skills, he's really up on a high level. That's why they have the trials and then they pick a team and he was part of that team that went to Adelaide in the National Championships. He kicked three goals in the first game down in Adelaide, but although the team didn't win there, they still did well to get there. Now that the Territory Thunder will be finishing soon, at the end the players get nominated to play for AFL draft and Darius will find out in October whether or not he was successful in getting drafted for an AFL club.
He's a role model for all young players but especially for Aboriginal kids who want to do well.