AUSTRALIAN RULES tells the story of sixteen-year-old Gary Black: average football player, budding wordsmith and reluctant hero. Gary helps his local Australian rules football team win the championship by accident, falls in love with a beautiful Aboriginal girl from the Mission, and becomes tangled in a terrible conflict with the people of his small, coastal town. AUSTRALIAN RULES is a story of unexpected love and the bravery of one young man in a town ready to explode.