Not a red light once tails up

CENTRAL Australia finally have something to crow about after chalking up their first win of the season against Darwin Buffaloes at Northline Oval yesterday.

The Redtails put last week’s horror behind them and racked up a comfortable victory after dealing with the doubleblues 21.7 (127) to 12.6 (78).

Chris Cooper got the visitors off to the perfect start with a goal inside the first minute but then the complexity of the game changed in the blink of an eye. Redtails best player this season, Gibson Turner, limped off with a hamstring injury and Darwin booted seven first-quarter goals to have command of the game at the first break.

But another change occurred in the second term with Cooper, Charlie Maher and big Daniel Stafford taking control in the front half, and the Centralians took the lead at the 16-minute mark and never surrendered it for the remainder of the match.

Redtail coach Greg McAdam was delighted with the win and saw the attitude of his players change early in the match. ‘‘It was the second quarter where we took absolute control, and while they jumped us early in the first term, we began to peg them back and I thought that was significant,’’ he said.

‘‘Our skills and talent were never in question. The difference in competition between Alice Springs and the NTFL is the mental application so what we needed to do was address that.’’

The Redtails didn’t have a weak link and with the bulky Stafford (6 goals) in the goal square finishing off the good work of ruckman William Foster, the running Caleb Hart and speedy wingman Michaelis McMasters, who showed even the quickest Buffalo a clean pair of heals.

Darwin relied on individual deeds by the likes of Shaun Wilson, Jarrod Stokes and Kelvin Williams.