Dear NT Thunder fans,

There’s not long left before our boys take to the field for the first time in 2019 and how exciting it is with all the new faces around the Club. We’ve got talent from Central Australia to the Tiwi Islands!

After a tough 2018 NEAFL season, club hierarchy underwent an extensive review to improve operations going forward. The result has seen a restructure and resourcing of positions within the program, allowing me to become Manager of NT Thunder NEAFL and VFLW. Wally Gallio will oversee the Talent and Pathway programs, and there’s also been the appointments of Darren Reeves to NEAFL Head Coach, Heidi Thompson as Women’s Academy Manager/VFLW Head Coach, Jason Roe to Men’s Academy Development Coach and Eliza Morrison to High Performance Manager.

We have 18 new players on our men’s list for this season, all talented and quality people on and off the field. Our list management team put a great deal of effort into understanding the character of any potential recruit, and we feel the players we have attracted have strong foundations and are going to drive the values and behaviours we hold so dearly at our club.

Along with the new faces, we have a revamped leadership group voted in by our players. Two young joint-captains Shannon Rioli and Abraham Ankers will be supported by a group of three experienced vice-captains in Joe Anderson, Jack Hannath and Phillip Wills. All five are outstanding leaders in their own right, and we know they will drive high standards in 2019.

Our VFLW players are well and truly into their pre-season, and as we did with the boys, we have worked hard on recruiting good characters that will again drive standards in the program. Their effort and attitude so far have been outstanding, and more key ThunderW signings are to come so stay tuned in the coming weeks.

I feel we have a quality group of young men and women that are ready to represent the Territory positively. As a program, we will endeavour to continually work with, support and educate young people to make good choices on and off the field.

A big thanks to all our valued volunteers, supporters, player sponsors and corporate partners, your ongoing support is imperative to our teams taking the field each weekend.

Join me in wishing all our coaches, players and support staff good luck for the season ahead, as they strive to do us proud.

Go Thunder!

Andrew Hodges
NT Thunder Manager