By Peter Blucher
Queensland football Hall of Famer Mark Browning remembers the day he was at Yeronga waiting to watch a Colts grand final, when, five minutes before the first bounce, a worried-looking teenager wearing ‘civies’ raced across the oval to the dressing sheds.
Forgotten by a mate who was meant to drive him to the ground, he hurriedly threw on an Aspley jumper and a pair of boots, and proceeded to be best on ground.
It was one of football’s early introductions to the player who last weekend delivered a significant milestone in what is now a multi-cultural AFL competition – he became the first Sudanese player to post 150 AFL games.
Aliir Aliir had been lured to Australian football by Kedron High School mate James Ives, son of Mayne Grogan Medallist Peter Ives, in 2009. He played in the Under 14s at Aspley to begin a journey which has seen him become a poster boy for the non-traditional AFL pathway.
The early part of his story is not entirely new will never be forgotten. How he was born in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya to Sudanese parents who spent six years there after having fled Sudan to escape a bloody civil war.
How he lost his father in a car accident aged seven, and as eight-year-old in 2002 he moved with his mother to Australia, settling in Brisbane after short stays in Sydney and Newcastle.
How the junior basketball fanatic, as a member of the Queensland Under 16 squad, was invited to an AFL camp in Sydney ahead of the 2010 Australian U16 championships and eventually represented a World XVIII at the carnival.
How he freakishly sat next to another Sudanese boy on the team bus only to learn later that they were cousins. Reuben Riak, whose mother was still in Uganda, was living with his aunt in Perth. Soon the boys learned their mothers were sisters.
How, after representing the World team at the U16 carnival in 2011 and playing for Queensland U18 side and making his senior debut at Aspley in 2012, Aliir was overlooked in the 2012 draft.
How, having moved in 2013 to Perth to reunite with his mother and four brothers and sisters, he joined WAFL club East Fremantle, was an over-age member of the Western Australian U18 side, and was drafted to the Sydney Swans with pick #44 in the 2013 AFL National Draft.
And how, after waiting until 2016 to make his AFL debut against Brisbane at the Gabba, he played 64 games in nine years at the Swans and, with a year to run on his contract, he was traded to Port Adelaide for a second round pick ahead of the 2020 National Draft.
But the Aliir of today, who accepted a four-year deal to move to Port, is a vastly different character to that of his early years under the caring watch of Browning, the former Sydney Swans champion and long-time ‘father’ of the AFL Queensland Talent Pathway. And he’s told much more of his remarkable story.
We’ve learned that, as a common part of his culture, his father had two wives. That he grew up with two mothers and was one of 12 siblings, three of whom still live in Africa, and as a child spoke Dinka, the language of his family’s ethnic group. And has only once been back to Africa – in 2016 to attend the wedding of his brother Akolda in Uganda.
While these days Aliir plays with his wrists untaped, it wasn’t always the case. In his early years he wore wristbands in his national colours – the one on his left arm was in green, black, red and white with “Kenya” on it, and the one on his right, in the same colors plus blue and yellow, had “South Sudan” written on it.
Fittingly for the ever-athletic and high-flying defender, the name ‘Aliir’ in Dinka means ‘air’.
Aliir, who will turn 30 on 5 September, also wears two glittering necklaces – one with a South Sudan flag, the other with a map of Africa. And while Kakuma in Kenya is home, he calls himself a proud South Sudanese man.
Now in his fourth season at Port Adelaide and firmly entrenched as one of the best intercept defenders in the competition, he’s a family man devoted to partner Sabina and son Mayom, born in August 2022 and carrying Aliir’s middle name.
The second player of Sudanese heritage to play in the AFL after North Melbourne’s Majak Daw, Aliir is now the 150-game senior member of 12 AFL players from his homeland.
Next of the games list are Hawthorn’s three-club journeyman Mabior Chol (79 games) and Fremantle 75-gamer Michael Frederick, who his twin brother Martin played 14 games at Port Adelaide.
Gold Coast’s Mac Andrew has played 38 games and is an emerging star of the competition with Hawthorn 56-gamer Changkuoth Jiath, whose brother Tew debuted at Collingwood in Round 14 this year, and 25-gamer Buku Khamis, who has established his place in the Bulldogs backline in recent weeks.
Completing the list are Bigoa Nyuon, who has played four games with Richmond and North Melbourne, Reuben William, who played three games with Brisbane in 2016, and Tom Jok, who played one game at Essendon in 2019.
Of 103 first-time draftees in Aliir’s 2013 draft he was the 70th of 77 to play in Round 6 2016, following George Hewett (Sydney/Carlton) in Round 1 of the same year, Port’s Darcy Byrne-Jones in Round 3 and Jayden Hunt (Melbourne/West Coast) in Round 4.
He was the 29th player from the 2013 draft to reach 150 games, and is one of 35 still active.
The six players still hoping to reach 150 games are Gold Coast’s Sean Lemmens (145), Port/Hawthorn wingman Karl Amon (144), Sydney/StKilda midfielder Zak Jones (146), Carlton/Gold Coast utility Nick Holman (128), Fremantle’s Alex Pearce (122) and Essendon/Port/Carlton small forward Orazio Fantasia (112).
It was a superstar draft, producing seven of the current AFL captains – the Bulldogs’ Marcus Bontempelli (#4), North co-captain Luke McDonald (#8), Carlton’s Patrick Cripps (#13), Essendon’s Zach Merrett (#26), Richmond’s Toby Nankervis (#35), Pearce (#37) and Hawthorn’s James Sicily (#57).
Also, named All-Australian in 2021, Aliir is one of nine players from the 2013 draft to win a total of 18 All-Australian blazers. The others are Bontempelli (5), Cripps (3), Merrett (3), Sicily (1), Byrne-Jones (1), GWS’ pick #2 Josh Kelly (1), Adelaide #23 Matt Crouch (1) and Adelaide/Brisbane rookie #7 Charlie Cameron (2).
Enjoying a close relationship with Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley, Aliir has been a key figure in a recent surge which has seen the Power win five of their last six games and move to third on the AFL ladder, a game behind top side Sydney and half a game behind second-placed Brisbane.
And having missed the 2016 grand final with Sydney through injury, Aliir is looking forward to his fifth AFL finals campaign and the prospect, he says, of adding a premiership medal to his jewellery collection.
