By Murray Silby
NT Thunder has climbed off the bottom of the NEAFL ladder with a 25-point victory over Redland in Round 4, 18.15 (123) to 14.14 (98).
Playing on Redland’s Scottsdale home ground, Thunder set up its eighth win from nine ANZAC Day round clashes played between the two sides with determined showings against the wind in the second and fourth quarters.
Kicking with a two-to-three goal breeze in the opening term, Thunder opened the match in pulsating terms with an exhilarating snap by Adam Tipungwuti.
Shortly after, successful snaps by Ben Rioli and Abraham Ankers minutes apart had Thunder up by 16 points and off to a flyer.
Redland quickly hit back though with the next four goals to turn that deficit into a four-point lead at the 30-minute mark of the term.
A goal to Hugo Drogemuller, playing his first game for the season, gave Thunder the lead deep in the term, but a Clay Cameron major after the siren snatched a five-point lead for the Bombers at the first change.
Redland had the benefit of the breeze in the second quarter and playing on its home ground, was expected to be difficult to contain.
It wasn’t until the sixth minute, however, that the Bombers kicked their first goal of the term, but when it came it was from a player, who Thunder players could be excused for having nightmares of.
Big full forward Matt Hammelmann kicked nine goals straight in the corresponding match last year in Alice Springs to win the ANZAC Medal for best-on-ground, and his first in Saturday’s game showed exactly what he’s capable of.
Hammelmann marked on the lead for a 50 metre special from deep in the pocket that wasn’t particularly favoured by the wind.
He followed that up with another major from a mark and set shot on the 13-minute mark. He’d finish with four for the day, but David Johnston could possibly claim the victory in their duel.
As the Bombers chance with the breeze ticked away, goals to Thunder’s Jack Hannath and Kieran Delahunty followed thanks to some excellent team pressure.
That enthusiasm for the contest was summed up by a great sequence of play later in the term, which included Chris Yarran running down a Redland opponent and Ross Tungatalum finishing off the good work by rolling through an intelligent goal.
Another Tungatalum goal and one to Dylan McLachlan either side of a Tom Salter major for Redland closed out the quarter.
By holding the Bombers to 4.5 for the second term, while kicking 5.3 itself against the wind, Thunder had not only managed to prevent the home side from skipping away with the breeze; the visitors had actually reduced their deficit to just a single point by half-time.
With the third quarter only 20 seconds old, Tungatalum popped up for his third goal to give Thunder the lead by five points, the sixth lead change of the game.
A stalemate then set in though, and it took another 14 minutes for the next major to be scored by either side. It went to the Bombers’ Soul Cormick.
With the breeze at their backs, Thunder had been peppering the goals, but not been reading its effect appropriately and had 1.5 to Redland’s 1.1 to show for it.
Still, despite the fear the Territorians might be kicking away their chance for victory, that did translate into a three-point lead, and, within a minute of Cormick’s goal, Tungatalum marked and goaled from a set shot for a nine-point lead. Then, within the next four minutes, Drogemuller and Abraham Ankers had booted another two.
It was a fair reward for Ankers’ work in the term as he piled on nine disposals, including five kicks and four handballs.
Hammelmann reminded of the threat he posed with two goals in the second half of the term before Delahunty rounded out the quarter with his second.
Thunder’s 13-point three-quarter-time lead looked a lot like the hard work had been done, but with the Bombers kicking with the breeze, the game was far from finished.
A tense final quarter opened up in the eighth minute when a quick snap by Ankers, after receiving a lightning handball from Dylan McLachlan, pushed Thunders’ lead out to 19 points.
The margin ballooned out to 38 points after 20 minutes thanks to back-to-back goals to Dylan Barry, and then Delahunty’s third, but Scott Miller and Caleb Franks kicked the next two to bring the margin back to 25 points on the final siren.
Thunder coach Darren Reeves admitted there was some relief in getting Thunder’s first win for the 2019 season on the board, but was more pleased in seeing the development in his young side.
“To come here with a really young group, we had a debutant bloke; we had three or four guys playing their second game and another couple of guys playing only their third or fourth game at this level, so they’re all learning still,” he said. “Now they understand what it takes, which is really important.
“Very pleasing. We just got a more even contribution from everyone across the board. Everyone just played a role and showed the boys that if we’re able to do that for long periods you get a result going your way because we’ve got enough talent to win games of footy, it’s just about getting blokes to do that for long periods and we did that today.”
Thunder has suffered a series of blowouts in the past 12 months with opposition teams kicking a succession of unanswered goals, sometimes for whole quarters, but there were signs on Saturday that perhaps a corner might have been turned.
“Even those times when they (Redland) had momentum, we didn’t let them get away from us too much,” Reeves said. “We were able to peg a goal back when they were able to get in front of us and looked like they had the game in their grasp for a little while through the second and third quarters.”
Captain Abraham Ankers, with 26 disposals and three goals, became the eighth Thunder player to win the ANZAC Medal for best-on-ground in the traditional clash.
His work in Thunder’s engine room alongside Jacob Templeton (21 disposals) was crucial, particularly in the second quarter.
“I thought he (Ankers) was pretty good after quarter-time. He was really solid for us, and I thought Templeton was good,” Reeves said.
In defence, Josiah Farrer took some timely intercept marks and Joe Anderson was his usually desperate self while David Johnston may have had four goals kicked on him by Hammelmann, but such are the talents of the league’s leading goal-kicker in 2018 that such a result is classed as a win for Thunder.
“He (Johnston) was one player we singled out,” Reeves explained. “We know he can play that role because he’s played 50-odd WAFL games in that type of role, but having said that, it was still a big job for him.
“His job on him (Hammelmann) was outstanding, just to shut him down in a lot of one-on-one situations, and he got at the ball and was able to provide us with a bit of drive as well with ball in hand, so it was a super effort from him,” Reeves added.
“I thought Joey Anderson was excellent. I thought our forwards were much better. Rocco (Ross Tungatalum) does what he does, and we were able to get really good forward 50 pressure from Nicky Yarran, Adam Tipungwuti, Dylan Barry, Jess Budarick and those types and that was really important for us.”
Thunder’s victory was even more stoic for losing Keiren Parnell within five minutes of the game starting. Having taken a long road back to play after two ACL injuries, swelling in his “good” knee led to Parnell taking no further part in the match.
And then, late in the third term, Tungatalum rolled an ankle, reducing Thunder’s rotations by two.
The four points Thunder gets for the win lifts it to eighth on the NEAFL ladder, equal with Redland, which is just inside the top six.
Brisbane and Sydney are setting the pace though; both have four wins from four games. Reigning premier Southport is in third place with three wins from three matches.
REDLAND 5.3, 9.8, 12.11, 14.14 (98)
NT THUNDER 4.4, 9.7, 14.12, 18.15 (123)
GOALS: Redland – Matt Hammelmann 4, Clay Cameron, Soul Cormick, Caleb Franks 2, Scott Miller, Tom Salter, Damian Steven, Kyle Walsh.
NT Thunder – Ross Tungatalum 4, Abraham Ankers, Kieran Delahunty 3, Dylan Barry, Hugo Drogemuller 2, Jack Hannath, Dylan McLachlan, Ben Rioli, Adam Tipungwuti.
BEST: Redland – Clay Cameron, Craig Malone, Tom Salter, Jack Rolls, Caleb Franks, Peter Yagmoor.
NT Thunder – Abraham Ankers, Joe Anderson, Dylan Barry, Jacob Templeton, Kieran Delahunty, Dylan McLachlan.