by Murray Silby

The Canberra Demons have snatched a victory from what looked a likely defeat in the final moments of their Round NEAFL match against NT Thunder at TIO Stadium in Darwin on Saturday night, winning by five points 12.10 (82) to 10.17 (77). Canberra was five points down at three quarter time, but snatched the lead five minutes into the final term thanks to Aaron Bruce’s third goal of the match. It followed that with a behind before Thunder began a run of five successive behinds, the last of those, a snap by Ben Rioli, giving Thunder a one-point lead over the visitors.

When rover Abe Ankers goaled on the run at the 21 minute mark after receiving a clever kick from Rioli while he was sitting on the ground the home side had slipped to a seven-point lead and was seemingly headed for victory.
After 24 minutes though, Canberra’s Nick Collins launched a 65 metre bomb that rolled through for a goal and brought the Demons to within one point of Thunder.

Nicholas Pleming followed it up with a goal after 31 minutes to put Canberra ahead by five points, the final margin.
Canberra opened with real intent in the first quarter, proving it was in Darwin to play.

Led by the likes of Andrew Swan and Aaron Bruce, the Demons were far cleaner with their delivery and were the faster of the two teams across the ground. In comparison, Thunder was experiencing similar problems to what it did the previous week against Sydney, struggling to deliver cleanly either by foot or hand when under pressure. If not for a few gettable misses later in the quarter Canberra’s lead could have been quite larger.

Thunder fought back in the second term, limiting Canberra’s carry and run while creating numerous scoring opportunities for itself. It wasn’t pretty footy though and the scoreboard reflected that with the home side kicking 3.9 for the term while limiting the Demons to 1.1. The one goal Canberra did score typified its preferred style, getting the ball behind Thunder’s press and carrying the ball almost the full length of the ground through clean hand and foot passing for Jacob Turner to finish.

The shining light for Thunder was Kyle Emery, who kicked two of his three goals in the second quarter. When the Demons opened the third quarter with the first three goals they’d turned a six-point deficit into a 14-point lead, but that finally seemed to rally Thunder, which responded with the next four to Daniel Weetra, Damian Williams, Adam Sambono and Darren Ewing.

A goal in the 29th minute by Mitchell Maguire though, lifted the Demons to within five points of Thunder at three quarter time, giving the visitors plenty of hope. Canberra playing coach Kade Klemke said he had confidence his side would run out the match despite leaving the cold of Canberra to play in the warmth of Darwin. “One of the things we’ve been really good at this year is our last quarters,” he said.

“Travelling away we haven’t been great, but some of the fitness results we were getting preseason were phenomenal, so something like that, when we’re in the game, when we can stay in the game, I know we’ve got the legs in the end. “I know it’s different conditions and some of the boys were tired, but it was something I thought we could get through.” He added that his side had learnt a lot from Sydney’s win over Thunder the week before. “We watched a lot of tape of the game against the Swans and we wanted to replicate what they did and I thought we did that really well,” he said.

“We knew that NT don’t get the handball out a lot. They’ve got the lowest handball figures in the competition, especially because of the conditions, but they’re great when they get the footy. They’re great at breaking the lines and something we wanted to do was take away their space so they couldn’t run. “They did it a couple of times, but I think we did really well and made them kick long. We just wanted to make sure they didn’t have easy ball coming in because I know if you don’t stop their run they will.” As if to emphasise Canberra’s success in limiting Thunder’s avenues to goal, its leading goal scorers this season, Darren Ewing and Adam Sambono were well held by Ben Halse and Ben Fulford respectively. Ewing finished with two goals and Sambono one.

Thunder’s coach, Andrew Hodges, said his side found it difficult to get its game going under the Demons’ pressure.
“Pretty tough night,” he said. “A bit of a grind all night. Credit to the Canberra Demons, they were fantastic in the contest, they were clean and they just wanted it a bit more than us, so disappointing, but like I said we’ve just got to do some work this week to make sure we bounce back next week.

“They made it a bit of a grind, a really hard, contested sort of a game. They did their homework really well on us. Didn’t allow us any space to get out and we just weren’t clean either. We fumbled the ball at key times when we could have been out so that’s really disappointing, we’re working really hard to fix those things and I’m sure we’ll bounce back.” Hodges acknowledged Thunder’s poor finishing is an issue.  “We just weren’t clean with our work,” he said. “We just didn’t finish so that’s disappointing, but I think for periods of the game our efforts were really good, but we had those lapses in concentration where we dropped off. “Canberra sustained it for four quarters and credit to them, they got the win.”

RESULT
NT Thunder 2.2, 5.11, 9.12, 10.17 (77)
Canberra 4.4, 5.5, 9.7, 12.10 (82)

GOALS
NT Thunder: Kyle Emery 3, Darren Ewing 2, Damian Williams Jnr. 2, Daniel Weetra, Adam Sambono, Abe Ankers.
Canberra: Aaron Bruce 3, Jacob Turner 2, Lucas Meline, Andrew Swan, Thomas Faul, Jordan Harper, Mitchell Maguire, Nick Collins, Nicholas Pleming.

BEST
NT Thunder: Daniel Weetra, Cameron Ilett, Ben Rioli, Sam Smith, Damian Williams, Abraham Ankers, Neil Vea Vea, Kyle Emery
Canberra: Aaron Bruce, Jack Baker, Ben Halse, Ben Fulford, Kade Klemke, Jordan Harper.