A winning midfield and potent forward line gives Palmerston more food for thought

Last season’s wooden spooners Palmerston aiming high after a confidence boosting 12-goal win over the Tiwis

Nigel Lockyer Jr, centre, has impressed with the Palmerston Magpies in a goalkicking role. Picture: Aaron Black/AFLNT Media

PALMERSTON’S demolition of a young Tiwi Bombers side should be the launching pad for much bigger things, their captain Matt Dennis said last night.

The Magpies outplayed the Tiwis in most aspects of the game, putting last week’s big loss to Waratah behind them with their 73-point win.

Dennis spoke about the importance of rebounding early in the week and they did that with a winning midfield and a mobile forward line that produced 21 goals.

“It was really important to start our season off well and coming off last year’s disappointments we wanted to get some wins on the board and some confidence,’’ Dennis told the NT News.

“I feel like we learned a lot this week and played a lot better after getting bullied around the contest by the bigger guys at Waratah on a smaller ground at Gardens.

“Against the Tiwis we used our strength and our run to put them to the sword on a big ground that showed how dangerous we can be.

“The midfield played their role really well, to the point where we weren’t relying on one bloke after Chris Williams stole the show in the first round for us.’’

Dennis liked the contributions from every player in a Palmerston jumper, everyone of them resplendent in the traditional black and white vertical stripes.

“This time it was pretty well a 22-player all-round effort and winning the ball out of the middle also had a lot to do with Jack Berry there to help me with the ruck work,’’ Dennis said.

So how far can the 20-21 Magpies go after winning one game in the ‘19-20 season?

The Magpies play the in-form and unbeaten Darwin Buffaloes in a twilight game at TIO Stadium on Saturday.

A win for the Magpies will get the critics off their back and establish them as genuine finals contenders.

“Internally we know where we are at, how good we can be and the players we’ve got at our disposal,’’ Dennis said.

“Now it’s a matter of putting that in place after everyone got down on us after last week’s loss.

“There’s still a lot of work to do, we know that and we also know we can be a very good football side.’’

More good news for the Magpie faithful was the form of Centralian recruits Nigel Lockyer Jr and Tosh Kunoth in front of goals.

Their run and tackling, combined with an ability to present to teammates running down the ground will test several defences this season.

Lockyer and Kunoth kicked nine goals between them without the presence of a third prong in the Magpies’ forward trident — the big marking Daniel Stafford.

A shoulder injury sustained in the loss to Waratah kept Stafford out of the side after he was advised to rest the injury against the Tiwis.

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