Kantilla’s Goals Enliven the Tigers | Reserves Round 17

By Ken Casellas

The late David Kantilla is revered as one of Australia’s greatest indigenous footballers, and at Revo Fitness Stadium on Saturday Tigers fans were treated to a bit of Kantilla magic.

This came from Kantilla’s great grandson Kim Kantilla, who lined up in a forward pocket for Claremont in the WAFL reserves match against East Perth and scored his side’s second, third and fourth goals.

The 25-year-old Kantilla is an exciting player blessed with wonderful skills and agility, but it was more his clever positioning and reading of the play that led to his hat-trick which set the Tigers on their way to a solid 27-point victory.

It was Sam van Rooyen who provided the early excitement eight minutes after the start when midfielder Ashton Bryant centred the ball and van Rooyen launched himself skywards to take a spectacular mark at centre-half-forward and then boot his side’s first goal. Two minutes later van Rooyen took another superb mark on the right wing to send Claremont into attack.

Kantilla evaded his opponent in the left pocket to mark a kick from Ben Evans before steering the ball through for Claremont’s second major. Later in the quarter left-footer Logan Guelfi’s long kick forward was marked by Kantilla for his second goal.

East Perth replied with a couple of behinds before Claremont’s full-back Eric Benning foiled a promising East Perth forward sortie with an excellent mark deep in defence.

Three minutes into the second term Kantilla notched his third goal to steady the ship after the visitors had scored goals in rapid succession from Matt Palfrey and Zach Hill.

Claremont fans applauded the 28-year-old Palfrey, who was making his second appearance for the East Perth’s reserves side this season after missing the entire 2023 season while recovering from a damaged ACL.

The left-footed Palfrey had been a colts, reserves and league player for Claremont from 2014 to 2019 before returning to his home town of Albany to resume his career with the Railways club and winning the Kleeman Medal twice as the best player in the Great Southern League. Palfrey was one of four former Claremont players in the East Perth side, the others being Ben Ramshaw, Alex Pearce and Kade Lines.

Kim Kantilla joined Claremont this year after being a star for the Waratah Warriors and Tiwi Bombers in the Northern Territory Football League and playing for South Adelaide in the South Australian league competition in the past two years.

David Kantilla, a tall, high-leaping ruckman and forward, was the first Tiwi Islander to play in an Australian league competition. He was recruited by South Adelaide in 1961 and he scored six goals on debut in a match against Glenelg.

He was the club’s fairest-and-best player in 1961 and 1962 and was a member of the club’s 1964 premiership side. He played 113 matches for South Adelaide and represented South Australia in four interstate contests.

In 1997 Kantilla was inducted into the Northern Territory’s Hall of Champions. He was also named in South Adelaide’s Hall of Fame and in 2005 was named in the Indigenous Team of the Century.

Two goals in the second quarter of Saturday’s match to 18-year-old Sullivan Moody, making his second appearance at reserves level, helped the Tigers to hold an 18-point lead at half-time.

Claremont maintained their control of the contest in the second half, and the victory was the side’s twelfth from 13 qualifying-round matches.

Details:

Claremont 14.13 (97) beat East Perth 10.10 (70)

Scorers---CLAREMONT: K. Kantilla 3.1; R. Disisto, S. Moody, D. Mulligan 2.1; B. Evans 1.2; T. Smallwood 1.1; B. Banfield, S. Gilbey, S. van Rooyen 1.0; M. Barron, M. Inverarity, M. Mumme, M. Rohr, L. Wilson 0.1; 1pt forced. EAST PERTH: Z. Hill, M. Palfrey 3.1; A. Boules 2.2; S. Page, A. Pearce 1.0; B. Maxwell. A. de Masi, S. Soka 0.1; 3pts forced.

Best---CLAREMONT: A. Bryant, B. Banfield, M. Barron, M. Rohr, E. Greenaway, D. Mulligan, E. Benning, S. Williams, S. Gilbey, K. Kantilla. EAST PERTH: J. Brooks, P. Reilly, A. Boules, B. Ramshaw, Z. Hill, T. Amos, D. Miller.