Redtails in the Sunset

The untold story of the Central Australian Football Club

Darren Moncrieff

$39.95

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Aboriginal Studies Press
01 September 2025

Folk & traditional music; History

Redtails in the Sunset follows the story of an Aussie rules football team from Central Australia fighting to enter the game's final frontier and play in the Premier League in Darwin.

This book tells the gripping tale of a mighty four-year effort to take a rag-tag bunch of footy part-timers and community Countrymen head-to-head against their semi-professional city-cousin counterparts.

Coming up against the 'butterfly effect' of a rising bloc of south Asian nations, a footy chief whose inbox was redlining, flight timetable changes and a Red Centre 'jewel' that sat so close yet so agonisingly far, local representative football has never been so thrilling.

Wadjarri and Yingaarda-Thargarri man and long-time sportswriter Darren Moncrieff brings together his journalistic skills, love for Australian rules football and keen eye for humour to tell the inspiring story of the Redtails.

To this day, the Redtails legacy lives on through the Redtails Pinktails Right Tracks Foundation, which mentors and helps young people in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and remote communities gain employment and become community leaders. Now a Central Australian success story, this is where its story began.

By: Darren Moncrieff
Imprint: Aboriginal Studies Press
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 230mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780855752064
ISBN 10: 0855752068
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 01 September 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Darren Moncrieff is a Wadjarri and Yingaarda-Thargarri man and a longtime sportswriter from Western Australia. He had a front-row seat to the Redtails phenomenon as the sportswriter for the National Indigenous Times covering the Northern Territory, and as an Aussie rules player, in the NTFL in Darwin at the same time as the Redtails' presence in the Top End. A lifelong footy fan, Darren has played Aussie rules football for almost 40 years, reluctantly hanging up his boots only a few years ago. He has written about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues and extensively on Indigenous sport since the late 1990s. Darren has held the roles of sports editor and sports reporter for Koori Mail, Torres News and Yamaji News. This is his first book.