Adam Sambono celebrates one of his 6 goals

Sambono’s six sinks Aspley

01.04.17 23:34

by Murray Silby

NT Thunder has got its NEAFL season off to an ideal start with a comprehensive 57-point victory over Aspley at TIO Stadium in Darwin.

A dominant seven goals to two third term by the NT side effectively put the game out of reach for the Hornets, but it was costly misses in the second quarter that may have lost them the match.

That, and not having an answer for exciting 20-year-old Thunder debutant Adam Sambono, who booted six goals in a display that showed he’s got the skills and smarts to play at the NEAFL level.

Nuggety lead-up full forward Darren Ewing, who contributed five goals, and the slim light-on-his-feet Sambono, who loves to snap goals over his shoulder, offer contrasting styles in the forward line, but the pair combined in a way that should have Thunder fans excited about the season ahead.

Darren Ewing and Adam Sambono celebrate a goal in the fourth quarter

Sambono’s three goals in the second quarter went a long way to setting up Thunder’s victory.

The Hornets had responded to a fast start by the NT in that term, which had seen the first quarter margin blow out from 14 points to 27 within four minutes of play thanks to one goal by Sambono and another to ruckman Ryan Smith.

Goals to Aspley’s Gavin Grose and Nicholas Jackson got the deficit back to 14 points, but then bad misses by former North Melbourne forward Ben Warren and Callum Carseldine let the NT side off the hook.

Sambono went on to kick another two goals and Ewing one to cancel out the two scored by the Hornets’ Nicholas Jackson and Thomas Rudolph.

The Thunder then ended any hope of an Aspley comeback with its runaway third term with contributors all over the field.

After his first game as head coach of the Thunder Andrew Hodges said he was particularly pleased with the way his debutants performed in the match, not least Sambono.

“By design we wanted to reduce the age of our list and really concentrate on retaining and recruiting local talent, which we’ve done, and Adam Sambono was one of our targets in that and he played a really good game tonight,” Hodges said.

“Amongst all the other first gamers Nick Yarran was fantastic and Mikey Coombes, so really pleased with the guys that we’ve brought in and they really played well and they looked at home at this level which is great.

A great debut by Nick Yarran

GPS tracking revealed Sambono ran 10 kilometres in search of his six goals and said after the match that he was helped by having the experienced Ewing playing alongside him.

“I really enjoyed it with Darren Ewing alongside me telling me where to go, where to be and where the ball is going to be,” he said. “It’s good, my first year playing with Boof (Ewing), it’s a pretty good experience and the delivery from the centre from the boys was good.”

Apart from the combined 11-goal haul by Sambono and Ewing though Hodges said it was a classic team performance.

Thunder’s ruck combination of Neil Vea Vea and Ryan Smith were amongst their side’s best, providing their runners with first use of the ball at stoppages, but also linking play around the ground.

Captain Shannon Rioli was one of the onballers to benefit from the ruckmen’s dominance while in defence veteran Cameron Ilet was resolute all game, but particularly in the first half when the game was being won. Thomas Davies and Daniel Weetra gave strong support in the back half as well.

“I think we had really great contributors across the board. I think (it was) a pretty even spread across the whole side and everyone played their role. We didn’t really have any passengers and that was great,” he said.

Hodges added that although most of his squad has been playing Northern Territory Football League games until recently and so are mostly match fit, he didn’t have much time to pull the squad together.

“There’s been a bit of hard work over the last few weeks, the boys have only really trained four times together so to get away with the win tonight, (well) the boys were pretty impressive.”

At the three-quarter time break

Aspley coach John Blair was disappointed that his side had let its chances slip when it was still in the game.

“You look at the first half and one side took its opportunities and the other side didn’t and I wouldn’t say they outplayed us at all in the first half. We had a lot of ball, we made some critical mistakes, gave them some pretty easy turnovers, which resulted in some pretty soft goals to them and we had to work hard for our goals and then we had blokes missing easy shots that put scoreboard pressure on us,” he said.

“We all know it’s a hard road trip, the weather conditions, the humidity, we didn’t have all our blokes as match hardened as we’d like and once again the NT have had the advantage of blokes coming in off a pretty rigorous footy season, that prepares the Thunder players a little bit better than ours, but we’ve got no excuses, we were just outplayed over the course of the 120 minutes.”

RESULT

NT Thunder 4.0, 9.2, 16.8, 19.11 (125)

Aspley Hornets 1.4, 4.8, 6.9, 9.14 (68)

GOALS

NT Thunder: Adam Sambono 6, Darren Ewing 5, Shannon Rioli 2, Neil Vea Vea, Ryan Smith, Abe Ankers, Hugo Drogemuller, Jarred Erlandson, Nicholas Yarran.

Aspley: Thomas Rudolph 3, James Ives, Nicholas Jackson, Gavin Grose, Matthew Payne, Ben Warren, James Nelis.

BEST

NT Thunder: Neil Vea Vea, Adam Sambono, Ryan Smith, Cameron Ilet, Shannon Rioli, Thomas Davies, Daniel Weetra, Darren Ewing.

Aspley: Gavin Grose, Nicholas Jackson, Thomas Rudolph, Matthew Payne, James Ives, Ben Warren.

INPEX U23 Best Talent Award

Round 1 vs Aspley votes:

3 votes: Adam Sambono

2 votes: Braedon McLean 

1 vote: Nick Yarran

For more photos and video interviews from the game, visit the NT Thunder Facebook page.