Grey Morris: Lack of clarity over NTFL rules leaves all in the dark after lights fail

ONLY time will tell if Friday night’s NTFL match abandonment at TIO Stadium will cost Southern Districts or Nightcliff a league premiership

Nightcliff player's wait for a final decision to be made about whether their game will go ahead. Picture: KERI MEGELUS

ONLY time will tell if Friday night’s NTFL match abandonment at TIO Stadium will cost Southern Districts or Nightcliff a league premiership.

In an episode taken straight out of Keystone Cops, a comedy series about incompetent policemen from the 1920s, the round 14 top-of-the-table clash was called off without a ball being kicked.

Will we? Can we? Where do we play? What about the lights on TIO No.2? How long do we have to wait until the lights come back on?

Questions that were flowing as quickly as excess rainwater filled gutters and drain pipes during the late afternoon storm that caused another lights catastrophe at TIO Stadium.

My sources tell me a substation outside the Marrara ground fell victim to another lightning strike, blowing out the five light towers on TIO No.1 and possibly the premiership flame that burnt at Norbuilt and Nightcliff ovals until 8pm last Friday.

Another case of lightning strikes twice, as grand final combatants Palmerston and Darwin found out in 2001 when the 2000-01 flag decider was almost called off due to a complete light failure.

Then there was the AFL premiership match game that stalled when one light tower blew out, enough for the league to get a nasty warning from AFL headquarters in Melbourne that another incident like that would put elite games in the Top End in jeopardy.

Another case of building steel structures in what many experts call the “lightning capital of the world’’ and hoping Mother Nature does not get angry.

Momentum is a big thing in football, probably the biggest thing according to former Carlton, North Melbourne and for a short time, Sydney coach Ronald Dale Barrassi.

And while opposing coaches Shannon Rusca and Chris Baksh said all the right things when interviewed by AFLNT media immediately after a red line was put through the game, their real thoughts will be kept in house.

Afternoon matches are on the agenda for both sides in the next two weeks. Districts have an appointment with a young but fleet- footed Palmerston side at Fred’s Pass on Friday and Nightcliff meet the in-form Tiwi Bombers on the unfamiliar turf at Tracy Village Oval.

A week later the 2pm Top End heat will blast both sides when Districts travel to Bathurst Island and Nightcliff play reigning premier St Mary’s in a similar timeslot at Marrara.

A loss in either of those games will take the wind out of the sails of either side, possibly both.

No amount of training sessions can replace matchday conditions, regardless of the positives that coaches may say outwardly but don’t really mean.

The alternatives to abandoning the game were wide ranging, play on No.2 or even at Palmerston’s Asbuild Oval, where the lighting for Saturday’s clash between the Magpies and Buffaloes was first class.

Or transfer the match to yesterday, where TIO Stadium looked like Tombstone after Wyatt Earp and his mates made a mess of the bad guys.

The subject of reimbursement for the fans is complex but very real. And bad luck to the NT News Player of the Year and Nichols Medal hopefuls, who will have to put Round 14, 2017-18 down to good old- fashioned experience.

A bit like Territory Thunder, who seem to make up their own rules as they go along.

The last time this writer checked, NTFC’s player movement rules, particularly paragraph four that deals with “retiring” players with its wording that no contract would be allowed for the following NEAFL season.

No disrespect to Cameron Ilett, who has been one of Territory football’s greatest servants, but the many callers to my desk this week dealing with his retirement at the end of 2017 were more than a little confused at his sudden rise from Thunder’s retirement village.

No doubt regaining the services of their champion took precedence over Appendix 7, Section 4(D) that is good enough for everybody else.

The same rules will be applied to every player from now on.

Won’t they?