After three years as wooden players in the Northern Territory Football League (NTFL), the Tiwi Bombers have finally hit rock bottom.

In January 2023, the team failed to field a team and had to sit out a game, almost being fined $10,000 for the struggling remote Aboriginal football team.

Senior coach Patrick Bowden said it was a tough time in the wilderness.

“The Tiwi Bombers were struggling – struggling to win games, struggling to get a team on the park,” Bowden said.

Fast forward less than two years and the Bombers are a completely different machine.

They have returned to the electrifying form that the Tiwi Islands are known for around the country, having won four out of six games this NTFL season and firmly eyeing promotion.

One of their secret weapons in the 2024 season was the entry of former Richmond Tiger Marlion Pickett, who kicked a goal on his AFL debut in the 2019 grand final.

He moved to the NT with his family, his partner also playing football for the Bombers women’s team.

“I like the heat and I like country life, it’s not as fast as city life and I enjoy it,” Pickett told ABC.

Pickett shares the story of the Tiwi players

The AFL grand final winning run was not without potholes.

He retired from the Richmond Tigers earlier this year, just over 12 months after being charged with theft and criminal damage offenses in Western Australia.

He is currently awaiting trial in Perth on the charges, to which he has previously said he intends to plead not guilty.

“Challenges come with everything in life,” Pickett said.

Pickett said he shared his life story and advice with communities on the Tiwis, including speaking to island schoolchildren.

“It’s hard to grow up Indigenous per se — some of us aren’t given everything,” Pickett said.

“Some of us have to work a lot in the background.

“You want to get where everyone else is, but we just have to do that little bit extra to try and make it.”

Team effort to bring the Bombers back from the brink

Pickett cannot claim all the credit for helping to change the fortunes of the Tiwi bombers.

The recruitment of former Richmond and Western Bulldogs utility Bowden as senior coach last season has paid off, as has hard work from the players and management.

Bowden said the club was able to maintain a more stable roster, which in turn helped ensure stability for the entire season and saved players from the risk of burnout.

For Pickett, he said the change came from within the Tiwi community.

“I just consider the hunger and drive from the community crowd,” he said.

“I think it’s just the country you know – country boys, country life and they just love playing footy.”

The Tiwi Bombers remain an extremely expensive business, largely due to the cost of flying players between the outlying islands and Darwin on an almost weekly basis during the NTFL season.

Bowden said they still badly need sponsors to remain a viable force for the future.