The Port’s Australian Rules football team has advanced to the grand final of their league, but young Blacky is far from excited about this. Due to the disqualification of one of their star players, Coach Arks has made Blacky the first ruck, the most important position on the team. Blacky knows he will disappoint Arks and the whole town, because the opposing team’s best player, Thumper, is larger and more brutal than Blacky is. Blacky knows that if he doesn’t at least appear to try to tackle Thumper, the whole town will consider him to be “a gutless wonder,” like Blacky’s father already does.
Blacky lacks the support of his older brother, Best Team-man, or his best friend, Pickles, but he knows his friend and teammate Dumby Red will always have his back. Dumby Red comes from the Point, the indigenous community outside the predominantly white Port. Though the towns are geographically close, residents of the two communities rarely interact with each other except when Arks brings the Point’s players into town for football season.
On the day of the big game, Blacky is horribly nervous, knowing he has very little chance of scoring. However, his team manages to tie with the opposing team in the first part of the game, particularly thanks to Dumby’s fast and skillful playing. Despite his superior skills, Dumby declines to make the winning goal himself, instead passing the ball to his cousin Clemboy, who scores one point. This means Blacky must prevent Thumper from scoring in the final seconds of the game so the Port will win. Blacky plans to fake-tackle Thumper so he can appear to try to stop him without actually injuring himself. Instead, Blacky accidently steps into Thumper’s path, winning the game for the Port but giving himself a concussion as well.
That night, the whole town gathers to celebrate the team’s victory. Everyone hails Blacky as the hero of the game, even his father. Blacky and Clarence, Dumby’s younger sister, leave the party to hang out on the jetty. There, they encounter racist graffiti reading “Boongs piss off” and meet Blacky’s elderly neighbor, Darcy. Darcy warns Blacky not to hang out with girls from the Point. Blacky doesn’t fully understand this warning, and he and Clarence return to the party. Blacky is awarded the “Best Team-man” trophy over his brother. The town gives the highest award to white Mark Arks, the coach’s son, instead of the clearly superior Dumby. Outraged at this injustice and realizing that it’s based in racial prejudice, Blacky decides he will quit the football team next year in protest.
Summer begins and Blacky has still not told Arks about his plans to quit the football team. Instead, Blacky is far more concerned with impressing a tourist girl, Cathy, whom he develops an intense infatuation with. He pretends not to know Clarence and the rest of a group from the Point when he and Cathy encounter them on the jetty. A bit later in the summer, Blacky is happily courting Cathy when a shooting occurs at the local pub. Blacky discovers that the pub owner, Big Mac, killed Dumby when Dumby and his friends were apparently attempting to rob the pub. Though the rest of the Port believes Dumby received the punishment he deserved, Blacky is devastated and cannot shake the feeling that the shooting was racially motivated.
Blacky wants to attend Dumby’s funeral, but his mother, his friend Pickles, and his coach Arks all discourage him. Blacky finally decides he must go to the funeral, even though going will also anger his father. After walking all the way to the Point, Blacky runs into Clarence and the rest of Dumby’s family. Together, they pay their respects. Later, Dumby’s uncle tells Blacky that the family appreciates Blacky coming to the funeral.
Blacky spends the next day avoiding his angry father. While at the butcher’s shop, Blacky realizes the handwriting on the store sign matches that of the racist graffiti on the jetty shelter. This leads him to the realization that someone must cover up the graffiti. Through conversing with his neighbor Darcy, Blacky realizes he must act himself, instead of waiting for someone else to act. That night, Blacky sneaks into his father’s shed to steal paint and a brush. His father catches him and strikes him. All seven of Blacky’s siblings come to defend him, and Best Team-man distracts their father by stealing the family car. While trying to get the car back, their father is knocked unconscious and the Black siblings escape with the paint and brush.
At the jetty, the Black siblings each take a turn painting over one letter of “Boongs piss off.” Once the graffiti is covered up, the siblings walk back together to a rocky ledge by their house. They fall asleep there. Blacky is the last to fall asleep, and he thinks about how, surrounded by his family after doing the right thing, he is as happy as he could be.
