This year’s Brian Williams Ntjalka Memorial Sports Weekend marked the 50th anniversary of the Ntaria Sports Weekend.
The crowds continued to grow across the Sports Weekend with more than five times the population of the community, packing in for the finals footy on Sunday. The Ntaria Community and organisers did a fantastic job to make sure that the weekend was a huge success for everyone involved. A big thank you to the NO MORE team for all their help.
It was a hard fought weekend between 10 teams with the 8 Mile Warriors, an outstation near Ntaria, taking out the title by 18 points over Santa Teresa.
Both teams finished the three regular rounds without losing a game, the top five finals system meant that the Warriors only had too play two games to take out the title after finishing top of the ladder thanks to a 56 point win over the Utopia Swans in the final round.
The Newstreet Tigers, Titjikala Power, Mutitjulu Cats, Utopia Swans and Papunya Eagles all showed glimpses of brilliance across the weekend, but unfortunately couldn’t get the chocolates and missed out on finals qualification.
Laramba fought hard before being knocked out by the Western Aranda Dogs in the first do or die elimination final, which also honored the memory of Brian Williams Ntjalka in the Memorial Match.
Santa Teresa had to go the hard way after losing to Ntjalka in the first round of the finals but went on to defeat the Western Aranda Bulldogs in an Elimination Final before overcoming Ntjalka in the Preliminary Final to head to the big dance.
The match of the weekend was the First Semifinal between the 8 Mile Warriors & Ntjalka, which finished all tied up after the regular time, the match then went to Golden Point with the Warriors taking it out and going straight through to the Grand Final.
The Grand Final was one for the ages with multiple lead changes through out the match, there were plenty of high fly’s and hard hits across the match. The 8 Mile Warriors gained control in the last quarter after leading by only 2 points at the final change.
The 8 Mile Warriors took out the title 7.8. 50 defeating Santa Teresa 4.8. 32.
Each team were awarded a best on ground awards for the Grand Final and they went too Scott Young from Santa Teresa who almost took one of the best hangers you will ever see and had plenty of footy through defence for Santa Teresa and also Rohan Armstrong who had the ball on a string across the ground all day finishing with 30+ touches and a few huge tackles to lead his 8 Mile Warriors team to victory.
It was a great warm up for most of these teams who will be out there this Sunday running around during Round 1 of the Central Desert Regional Council CAFL Community Competition.