Frances Tipungwuti, Keanne Hart-Aluni named Round 1 NTFL Rising Star nominees
A Tiwi youngster with plenty of promise and a goal kicking Darwin Buffette won the Rising Star nominations from the opening round of the 2024-25 NTFL season. See all the nominees.
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A Tiwi youngster who showed intensity on and off the ball and plenty of promise has been named the opening round Rising Star nominee.
Frances Tipungwuti displayed a mature performance befitting his strong build up to the NTFL season, which included a full Tiwi Islands Football League season with the Muluwurri Magpies.
Off the back of that and a preseason where he has put in the hard yards alongside a Bombers outfit gunning for a strong season he showed what he’s made of in Round 1.
Tipungwuti got plenty of the ball with 17 disposals to his name, where he showed off his speed, but it was determination in defence that caught the eye of coach Patrick Bowden.
“He played a really mature game of football, particularly when he had the ball in his hands, and he got a lot of the ball,”
“His defensive work was also really good, he had a couple of rundown spoils and couple of tackle efforts that were really good, so all up I was happy with his performance.”
Tipungwuti played a couple of games for the Bombers in the 2023-24 season, but early signs are already pointing to him having a few breakout performances this season.
“He’s just a young fella who played a couple of games for us last year and we’ve kept an eye on him since then,” Bowden said.
“He played the whole season in the TIFL for the Muluwurri Magpies and had a really great season, and would have polled quite high in the best and fairest there.
“And he’s had a great preseason, barely missed a session and with form being a sign of preparation he’s done a great job preparing for the season.”
The Bombers kicked off their season in style beating Wanderers 19.9 (123) to 9.12 (66) to post one of their best Round 1 performances in quite a few seasons.
“We had a lot of confidence before we played that game, we just want to play a Tiwi brand as we did and continue the way we play,” Bowden said.
“PINT will be different this week in the way they structure up, so we’re going to have to try and handle that and continue to play our way.
“If we can handle their pressure then I think our pressure and offensive work should make it a really good game.”
Meanwhile, Darwin Buffettes Keanne Hart-Aluni was the standout youngster in the women’s competition scoring two goals as her side almost came back to beat PINT.
The reigning premiers got out to a quick lead in the opening quarter, but the Double Blues showed their stuff in the periods to follow to almost topple their foes.
Hart-Aluni was one of the standouts in that period and scored two goals in the come from behind surge, in which she showed her natural ball playing skills for all to see.
Saints’ Shakila Gardiner-Dunn, Tiwi’s Rosie Wilson and Districts’ Sophie Sawyer were among the other top young players in the women’s competition.
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