AFLW star Danielle Ponter will again spend the off-season period playing for junior club St Marys in the Northern Territory Football League Women's Premier League competition.
The Crows champion featured in the Saints' 103-point win over the Tiwi Bombers at Wurrumiyanga on the Tiwi Islands last Saturday.
The Maranunggu and Anmatjerre woman kicked a goal in her team's 15.16 (106) to 0.3 (3) win.
It is expected that Ponter will play the minimum six games required to qualify for the NTFL Women's Premier League finals.
Ponter appeared in nine games for St Marys last season, including the club's finals campaign, and was clearly among the better performers on the ground on each occasion.
The Saints have emerged as one of the premiership favourites this season and currently sit alongside PINT on top of the ladder at the Christmas break.
Waratah are a game behind the Saints and the Greenants, while Nightcliff and the Darwin Buffettes round out the top five.
The Saints' only loss so far this year was a 21-point defeat to PINT in Round 5.
Ponter told SEN Fridays in the Top End earlier in the year that an NTFL premiership would 'mean the world' to her.
"I would honestly probably give up one of my AFLW premierships to win an NTFL premiership, just because of how special the club is to me and my family," she said.
The Ponter name has a storied history with St Marys with her father Shane a six-time premiership player and a key member of the club's dominant period during the 1990s.
The Saints also announced last year that the club's U16 Girls best-and-fairest award would be renamed the Danielle Ponter Trophy.
Ponter was an exceptional junior footballer for St Marys and won the Sharyn Smith Medal – awarded to the best-and-fairest player in the NTFL U15 Youth Girls competition – four consecutive times.
She has played 58 games for the Adelaide Crows since joining the club in 2019.
Ponter is coming off an excellent season at the Crows having earned selection in the 2023 AFLW All-Australian team and finishing with a career-best 20 goals despite also spending plenty of time in the midfield.
She kicked a game-high three goals in Adelaide's 4.8 (32) to 4.7 (31) preliminary final defeat to North Melbourne last month.
The 23-year-old is already a two-time premiership player and two-time leading goal-kicker with the Crows.
Former Gold Coast and Hawthorn AFLW player Janet Baird has also joined St Marys and has played in the club's last two matches against Tiwi Bombers and Nightcliff.
The Tiwi, Yolgnu and Iwaidja woman was recently delisted by the Hawks after registering one game for the club over two seasons.
The 23-year-old previously played three games over two seasons with the Suns.
