St Mary’s continued their rags to riches rise in the NTFL's Women's Premier League when they burst the PINT bubble in Saturday's Round 12 clash at TIO Stadium.
PINT came into the morning game as the WPL's unbeaten ladder leaders but were run off their feet in the second, third and last quarters by the resurgent Saints.
Kept scoreless in the first quarter by their opponents, the Saints players returned the favour by holding the premiership favourites scoreless while booting six goals of their own.
That stunning turnaround flattened PINT who were second to the ball for the remainder of the game in their first defeat of the season.
Saints coach Paul Magher said it took a quarter to find the style of game they wanted to play, one of a defensive shutdown role.
"Once that happened we started to control the ruck and our on-ballers took off,'' he said.
"We knew at three quarter time we had more fuel than the opposition with our policy of rotating heavily off the bench to keep our players fresh and ready to go.''
Billie Byers, Danielle Ponter and Jamie Bryant found plenty of the football for the Saints, while Michelle Friel celebrated her 100th game with four quarters of hard running football.
An inaccurate Darwin Buffettes had to work hard to shake off the Tiwi Bombers on a slippery TIO surface in Saturday's lunchtime game.
The 2.8 (20) to 1.2 (8) win lifted the reigning premier two games clear of the sixth-placed Tiwis in the race for the finals.
Strong tackling defender Katelyn Hazlett was the Buffettes best on a day when the contested ball was up for grabs, while Stephanie Fomekong and Imahra Cameron were other good players.
Coach Melinda Taylor said the players had lost some focus through their inaccuracy in front of goals.
"We did enough to win and that was important,'' Taylor said. "Kicking 2.8 was not a good result, but the players worked hard to make sure we got the points.''
A seven goal to nil first quarter from Nightcliff set up a comfortable 69-point win over Palmerston on TIO Stadium's No.2 oval.
The Tigers' Sophie Hatzismalis did her representative chances no harm with a best on ground performance in the ruck, while key forward Mickayla Ward kicked four goals and Georgia Johnson and Christy Landwehr were prominent.
The win was Nightcliff's fourth in a row, lifting them to fourth on the ladder with a healthy percentage of 200.
After an arm-wrestling three quarters of football, it was vice-captain Kierra Zerafa and pure resilience Waratah had to thank in their 15-point win over eighth-placed Southern Districts at Gardens Oval, with Zerafa booting two majors.
Named in their best on debut, Chloe Lai got a big dose of leather poisoning from getting her hands around the football on several occasions. While a return from last season’s top goal scorer Lisa Miceli puts the second placed Tah’s in a promising position leading into the Christmas break.
