Former AFL midfielder Brandan Parfitt has capped off a brilliant Northern Territory Football League campaign by claiming best-on-ground honours in Nightcliff's crushing grand final win over St Marys on Saturday night.
Parfitt was outstanding in the Tigers' 13.14 (92) to 2.8 (20) triumph at TIO Stadium, collecting the Chaney Medal after finishing with 27 disposals, five clearances, seven tackles and seven inside 50s in a dominant all-round display.
Since returning to his junior club Nightcliff, Parfitt has consistently shown his class, and Saturday night was another reminder of the standards he brings.
Across 12 matches this season, he has averaged 24 disposals per game while also setting the standard with his defensive running and tackling pressure around the contest.
Parfitt's cousin and former St Kilda player Jack Peris also played his role with 14 disposals and plenty of run on the wing, as the Tigers featured a host of former AFL-listed players, including skipper Ryan Nyhuis, Rhett Montgomerie and Fergus Greene.
Former Collingwood VFL midfielder Lachlan Tardrew also found plenty of the football and linked up well throughout the night, while dangerous forward Brett Kennedy delivered arguably his best game of the season.
The Tigers finished the home-and-away campaign in third place and were not widely viewed as flag favourites, but their form lifted dramatically when it mattered most.
On a muddy and unstable surface after weeks of torrential weather in Darwin, Nightcliff handled the difficult conditions far better and produced a performance that underlined just how devastating the Tigers became during the finals series.
They comfortably accounted for St Marys in the qualifying final before dismantling Southern Districts in the second semi-final, and then completed the job in emphatic fashion on the biggest stage.
Their defensive work in particular has been a hallmark of the run.
Across 12 quarters of finals football, Nightcliff held its opponents goalless in eight of them - a remarkable statistic and a reflection of the dominance of the Tigers' defence.
The grand final itself was competitive early, with both sides battling the slippery conditions and finding scoring difficult in the opening term.
Nightcliff managed to settle first, with Zack Derksen and Boyd Bailey both kicking goals to give the Tigers an early edge.
St Marys responded at the start of the second quarter with a couple of goals and briefly looked capable of shifting the momentum, but the match turned after a costly lapse in discipline.
A series of undisciplined acts from Saints forward Jack Landt resulted in a 100-metre penalty and gifted Nightcliff a simple goal from close range.
From there, the Tigers took complete control.
What had been a tight contest quickly became a one-sided affair as Nightcliff piled on four more unanswered goals to open up a 39-point lead by half-time.
Any hope of a St Marys comeback was shut down after the break.
The Tigers remained organised behind the ball, clean around the contest and increasingly dangerous going forward, stretching the margin further in the third term before running away with the contest in the last quarter.
The 72-point defeat carries an unwanted piece of significance for St Marys, as it is the heaviest grand final loss in the club's proud history.
