38 — Northern Territory News, Monday, January 11, 2010 www.ntnews.com.au

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Round 13

Sthn Districts 3.2 5.6 11.7 14.10 (94)

Wanderers 0.2 3.7 6.10 10.15 (75)

GOALS — Districts: D McGennisken 3 E Cox 3 T Carroll3 M Cannard 2 C Johnson B Aalbers L Brandy.Wanderers: G Puruntatameri 4 M Johnson 2 RPrendergast 2 J Jackson B Stephensen.BEST — Districts: L Brandy M Cannard B AhMat K DingoD Staunton. Wanderers: S Motlop J Jackson RPrendergast M Johnson J Erlandson.Umpires: Ben Schmidt Jared Collins Nick Saltmarsh

Tiwi Bombers 5.3 8.6 10.8 12.10 (82)

Darwin 3.3 5.3 7.4 9.5 (59)

GOALS — Tiwis: R Kantilla 3 S Munkara G Cunningham2 E Tipungwuti J Puautkimi JR Pilakui B Ullungura AKerinaiua; Darwin: A Tipungwuti 5 F Hazelbane 2 JAnderson Z CasimiroBEST — Tiwis: S Munkara E Darcy G Puruntatameri WPilakui P Heenan; Darwin: J Anderson P Wills Z CasimiroS Wilson L PhilpottUmpires: Ray Hocking Kane Vellar Andrew Crook

Waratahs 2.3 6.6 6.7 10.13 (73)

Palmerston 1.1 3.1 3.2 5.3 (33)

GOALS — Waratahs: P Newman 4 C Kelf R Butler BBackwell D O’Sullivan M Dillon M Bradley. Palmerston: LTyrrell B Powell C Runnalls M Tyrrell T Looby.BEST — Waratahs: L Withers D May M Bradley C Kelf PNewman. Palmerston: B Powell J Dignan M Braun WBerto J Cantwell.Umpires: Mark Mounsey David Kennedy Mark Kennedy

St Marys 1.4 4.5 7.6 8.9 (57)

Nightcliff 2.3 3.11 4.13 6.16 (52)

GOALS — St Marys: A Vallejo 3 R Tungatalum 2 M LiddyJ Heath M Dunn. Nightcliff: T Motlop 2 Z Skinner C IrwinM Kreig R McGahey.BEST — St Marys: I Vallejo R Tungatalum K Lohde S RioliM Dunn. Palmerston: M Kreig R Campbell T Motlop CIrwin J Kickett.Umpires: Jared Collins David Armstrong Roland Ostler

Ladder

TEAM P W L D F A % PtsTIWI BOMBERS 13 11 2 0 1414 985 143.6 44S’DISTRICTS 13 10 3 0 1325 1029 128.8 40ST MARYS 13 8 5 0 1080 1015 106.4 32PALMERSTON 13 7 6 0 1174 1103 106.4 28WARATAHS 13 7 6 0 1139 1172 97.2 24WANDERERS 13 6 7 0 1214 1282 94.7 24

NIGHTCLIFF 13 2 11 0 1059 1263 83.8 8

DARWIN 13 1 12 0 931 1494 62.3 4

Next WeekRound 14

Friday, January 15: Darwin v Sthn Districts, 7.30pm.Saturday, January 16: Wanderers v Nightcliff at TIOStadium, 3.30pm; Waratahs v Tiwi Bombers at TIOStadium, 6pm. Sunday, January 17: Palmerston v StMarys at Cazaly’s Stadium, 4pm.

Post-Christmas battle still where season’s won and lostMY first season as a footballwriter with the Northern TerritoryNews was an interesting one, tosay the least.

It was nearing the end of asuccessful decade for John Taylor’sgreat St Marys sides, when 11 of apossible 13 premiership pennantswere pinned to the wall at the Saintssocial club.

But while the landscape of Territ-ory football had been changed by aflood of green and gold jumpers, itseemed the processes that drive theTop End game had not.

As a young bloke growing up inKatherine I was always told the post-Christmas season was the import-ant half of the NTFL season.

What had gone on before the fatman in the red suit sweated his waythrough the tropics was only awarm-up to the real thing — win-ning as many games as possibleafter Christmas to grab a finals spot.

Russell Jeffrey was coachingWanderers in 1994-95, the sameseason he lost a titanic first semi-final to an emerging Southern Dis-tricts, when the pace of Archie

Harvey got the Crocodiles over theline by a single point.

Jeffrey told a concerned reportersome six weeks into the season hewas not overly concerned with hisside’s wobbly start, particularlywhen the ‘‘real’’ business startedafter Christmas.

There were no mid-season breaksin those days, except if Christmasday fell on a matchday or a dayeither side.

League president Ray Buckleyand his board believed, rightly orwrongly, that a football seasonshould be continuous, without aninterruption for big servings ofChristmas pudding, alcohol andsoft drinks.

But the absence of a breakmade no difference to club listsafter the Christmas break, theywere stronger and hungrier with

a distinct ‘‘Foreign Legion’’ flavour.

A decade on and Waratahs provedon Saturday night that unlimitedrecruiting from interstate can workif premierships are on offer.

Southern recruits have had a longbreak since their season ended inearly or late September and theycan use the Darwin competition astheir pre-season.

Darwin Sportingbet has alreadyfelt the seriousness of Tahs’ recruit-ing, it remains to be seen if the lastday of the 2009-10 season will featurea team in red and white.

Alice races areanother washoutRACING was abandoned in AliceSprings for the second time yesterday.

Heavy downpours forced the cancel-lation of the five race meeting at PioneerPark on Saturday with Alice SpringsTurf Club (ASTC) officials postponingaction for 24 hours.

It wasn’t until 1.20pm that race stew-ards and jockeys agreed that the meet-ing was unsalvageable. Former ASTCboss and now Darwin Turf Club Oper-ations manager Andrew O’Toole saidMother Nature couldn’t be beaten.

‘‘The rain stopped at noon on Saturdayand there wasn’t a drop until 12.30pmtoday (Sunday). After all the heavy rainthe track copped in the past few days itdidn’t take much for conditions to de-teriorate to an un-raceable state.’’

O’Toole said there would be no meetheld to replace the one lost, with prizemoney going back into the Thorough-bred Racing NT prize pool.

The Pioneer Park surface will thisweek undergo its half-yearly mainten-ance. Racing will resume in the RedCentre on January 23.

Tiwis give ‘JR’ hisfairytale farewell

CHAIR, MAN: Tiwi’s ‘‘JR’’ Pilakui was chaired off after playing his last game for the club. Picture: NICK WELSH

ByANDREWALOIA

SEEING off a mate as a

winner was the differ-

ence between winning

and losing Saturday’s

emotion-packed NTFL

showdown against Dar-

win, according to Tiwi

coach Karl Gundersen.

John Ross ‘‘JR’’ Pilakui

was the toast of the

Bombers, chaired off

into retirement after his

side’s 23-point win at

TIO Stadium.

The competition league

leaders did it harder

than it has become accus-

tomed to this season,

pushed to the brink of the

upset of the season by a

tenacious Buffaloes.

W h e n t h e h e a v e n s

opened up in the second

half and the match reduced

to a wet slog, it was the

double blues that looked

more comfortable.

At the final change, with

the game in the balance,

Gundersen got the clearest

indication yet that his side

would not be defeated.

‘‘Talking to them at three

quarter time I could see it

in their eyes, that they did

not want to let this bloke

down,’’ Gundersen said.

‘‘The feeling was, ‘John

Ross is one of us let’s get

him over the line’. It being

his last game was a mass-

ive motivator for the

players ... and it’s for him

that they put in the 120 per

cent to get that win.’’

Pilakui, himself, did his

bit to earn a triumphant

finish to his football career

after 10 years.

The left ankle injury

m a y h a v e r e d u c e d

the amount of influence

he could make on the

game, but he still snuck a

goal in the second term and

put in the sort of no-

nonsense performance

that has endeared him to

the Bombers.

The feel-good finish to

the match was tempered by

the injury news of full-

forward Ephrem Tipung-

wuti, contributing only one

goal in the first term before

leaving the ground with a

lower back problem.

St Marys lucky to escape from Tigers’ jaws

St Marys’ Karl Lohde grabs Nightcliff’s John Koenig

FromBackPage

difficult to penetrate the Iggy Vallejo-led Saints backline.

And at the other end it was another Vallejo, Anthony,that made all the difference with a pair of goals in thethird stanza.

In increasingly slippery conditions in the last term thematch ground to a halt as the Tigers pushed and proddedfor a game-sealing goal after Motlop and Irwin did well toshoot straight and set up a cliffhanger finish.

Victory sees Saints skip into third place on thepremiership table.

The defeat leaves Nightcliff second bottom, 16 pointsadrift of fifth placed Wanderers with five games of theseason remaining.