by Murray Silby
The Canberra Demons have won the battle of the territories, but only after a tough fight from NT Thunder, in Round 8 of the NEAFL.
Thunder got to within 14 points of the Demons in the final term, but just couldn’t bridge the gap created by a one-sided opening term, losing by 28 points, 13.14 (92) to 18.12 (120) at TIO Stadium in Darwin on Saturday night.
The home side was most hospitable to the visitors, letting them off to a flyer in the opening term, conceding the first five goals of the match to be scoreless and trailing by 32 points inside 12 minutes.
Nathaniel Paredes kicked Thunder’s first goal at the 13 minute mark, which was followed up by another to Dean Staunton a minute later to get the hosts up and running, but Canberra hit back with the next four in succession.
The build up to Adam Tipungwuti’s goal after 28 minutes showed some promising signs for Thunder, but Alex Paech’s third for the term pushed Canberra’s lead back out to 44 points at quarter-time.
Thunder has struggled for much of the season to stem the tide of scoring when opposition teams have taken control of matches and all the signs were there that this match was going a similar way.
The tide started to turn as the second term got underway though, when Canberra won the first clearance and kicked the wrong way.
Good defensive pressure across half-back was also helping to keep the ball in Thunder’s forward half long enough for Dylan Barry to part the seas, gather the loose ball and snap truly after five minutes.
Another to Trent Melville, after the Thunder defence forced a turnover, reduced the margin to 30 points and gave the battle weary home supporters reason to hope.
Goals to Jack Powell and Mitchell Hardie for Canberra were split by Barry’s second, who was causing the Demons plenty of havoc around Thunder’s forward 50.
By half-time, Thunder had reduced the margin by seven points to 35, but 3.6 for the term meant the margin could have been smaller with more accurate kicking for goal.
The tone of the game seemed to have changed however, with Thunder’s defence forcing the Demons into more mistakes and bringing more turnovers as a result.
The third term started in perfect fashion for the home side too with Abraham Ankers snapping truly just 40 seconds into the quarter.
Paech steadied for the Demons with his fourth of the game a couple of minutes later though with a soccer off the ground, but then Thunder fired home the next three goals to Clint Gallio, Paredes and Staunton.
That run took Thunder within 18 points of Canberra and a great comeback was on the cards, but that pressure was released somewhat when Hardie popped up for his second late in the quarter to push the margin back out to 24 at three-quarter-time.
Barry got Thunder off to another quick start in the final term, kicking his third after just half a minute and an Ankers clearance in the centre of the ground.
When Paredes followed up with his third after nine minutes, Thunder had cut the margin to just 14 points, and the unlikely win was becoming more likely.
Rhys Pollock’s third for Canberra would start a run of four goals for the Demons though that would snuff out those hopes and set up the victory.
Ben Rioli scored the final major of the game to give him some reward for another fine effort in the Thunder jumper, but in the end, his team’s brave run couldn’t overcome the initial damage done by the poor first quarter start.
Thunder coach Darren Reeves was pleased with the fight his side showed to get back into the game and give itself a chance, but disappointed in the opening lapse.
“There’s not much good to be honest. It’s easy to say the last three quarters were a much better effort, but we can’t be accepting of what we saw in the first quarter,” he said.
“I think we were minus 50 uncontested possessions at quarter-time and we addressed that during the week, that we need to be better and we just go one-v-one and scrap it out and don’t give your bloke a kick, but if you’re prepared to give your bloke some space and a kick, well, it’s easy at this level for blokes to just keep hitting targets and they did, so that was really disappointing.”
Late changes to Thunder’s line-up were an added challenge minutes before the start of the game, but Reeves said he was impressed by how the late inclusions, including debutants Brandon Rusca, Cohen Thiele and Nigel Lockyer Jnr, handled themselves and the occasion.
“Yes, Brandon in particular, it was 10 minutes before the start of the game that he came in,” Reeves said.
“We didn’t realise that Braedon McLean was going to hurt a hammy in the warm up so that threw us around a bit. Also Joel Stevens, he didn’t know until three o’clock this afternoon that he was going to play and I thought he was really solid and Brandon, he made a couple of mistakes, but he had some pretty good one-on-ones as well so that’s positive in that sense.”
Although clearly unhappy with the first quarter effort, Reeves said his side showed character to get back into the match after quarter-time.
“We fought our way back into it and that’s a positive,” he said. “We didn’t give up the ghost and we gave ourselves a chance to win the game at three-quarter-time and on another night you kick some of those goals and take the opportunities you have and you put yourselves a little bit closer, but we weren’t able to in the end.”
NT THUNDER 3.0, 6.6, 10.9, 13.14 (92)
Aspley 10.2, 12.5, 14.9, 18.12 (120)
GOALS
NT Thunder – Dylan Barry, Nate Paredes 3, Dean Staunton 2, Abraham Ankers, Clint Gallio, Trent Melville, Ben Rioli, Adam Tipungwuti.
Canberra – Alex Paech 4, Rhys Pollock 3, Kel Evans, Mitchell Hardie, Jack Powell 2, Angus Baker, Harrison Carr, Alex Smout, Sam Martyn, Lucas Meline.
BEST
NT Thunder – Cohen Thiele, Dylan Barry, David Johnston, Nigel Lockyer Jnr, Ben Rioli, Nathaniel Paredes.
Canberra – Rhys Pollock, Mitchell Maguire, Kel Evans, Alex Paech, Angus Baker, Matthew Vardanega.