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Moyes blames refs for losses

MANCHESTER Unitedmanager David Moyes claims hisside is being unfairly treated by referees after a 2-1defeat at Sunderland in its League Cup semi-final firstleg. A second-half penalty from on-loan Liverpoolforward Fabio Borini gave the home side victory at theStadium of Light on Tuesday and condemned United tothree consecutive defeats for the first time in 13 years.United had lost by the same scoreline at home toTottenham and Swansea in the past week.

Cooler Cup dates preferred

THE 2022World Cup in Qatar will not be held in June-July andwould best be held in the northernhemispherewinter, FIFA general secretary JeromeValcke said yesterday. The scheduling of the eventhas been hotly debated ever since it wascontroversially awarded to Qatar in December 2010,especially over fears that the summer heat would bedangerous for players and fans. ‘‘I think it will be heldbetween November 15 and January 15,’’ Valcke said.

TheReds carpet for Griffiths

ADELAIDE United have bolstered their attacking rankswith the signature of Ryan Griffiths for the remainderof the A-League season. The former Newcastle Jetsforward recently returned to Australia after a seasonwith Chinese club Beijing Boxy and his deal with theReds is pending amedical clearance from the club.Griffiths, 32, scored 19 goals for the Jets across2011-13. He is expected to be available for Adelaide’sclashwith Brisbane Roar on Saturday.

Spiderscoresa markon SebFOOTBALL

ByGREYMORRIS

Nightcliff’s Seb Guilhaus is in an Adelaide hospital after a spider bite Picture: ELISE DERWIN

I’ve got a third

nostril nowand

there’s a big hole in

my face and I’m still

pretty sore

NIGHTCLIFF ruckman SebGuilhaus’ superb debutNTFL season has been haltedby a spider bite.

The 198cm former CentralDistricts big man was help-ing a mate renovate a housein Adelaide when he wasbitten on the nose by what hesuspects was a wolf spider.

‘‘I didn’t notice it immedi-ately and only became awareof it later on,’’ he said fromhis hospital bed last night.‘‘I’ve got a third nostril nowand there’s a big hole in myface and I’m still pretty sore.

‘‘I’ll be out on Friday andwill have to wait another fewdays to heal properly.’’

Guilhaus is preparing to bedubbed ‘‘Spider’’ when hedoes return to the ruck forthe Tigers.

‘‘Spider Man or SpiderGuilhaus, it will come andI’m ready for it,’’ he laughed.

‘‘Actually it was pretty ser-ious. I was bitten two weeksago and didn’t get to hospitaluntil last Saturday when itgradually got worse.

It’s slowed my reactiontime down a fair bit and I’vebeen swatting imaginaryflies and doing push-ups in abid to get myself right.’’

He has gone through aseries of antibiotics in a bidto rid himself of the spider-bite infection.

‘‘We reckon we’ve foundthe right ones now so hope-fully I’m ready to go,’’ he said.

Guilhaus expects to beback in the Nightcliff side forthe Round 15 game againstthe Tiwi Bombers.

‘‘Obviously I’ll miss thisweek’s game against Wan-derers which is a shame, be-cause it’s a big one for us,’’he said.

‘‘I’m a chance the followingweek against SouthernDistricts, but more thanlikely it will be the Tiwisin a fortnight.’’

Aaron Cornelius, BrantChambers and Julian Lock-wood are expected to returnto the Tiger lineup forSunday’s game.

Optimistic Bombers pin finals hopes on upset resultsFOOTBALL

ByGREYMORRIS NTFL — ROUND 13

Saturday: St Marys v Palmerston at TIO Stadium (3.15pm),Tiwi Bombers v Darwin at TIO Stadium (5.30pm), SouthernDistricts vWaratahs at Gardens Oval (4pm).Sunday:Nightcliff vWanderers at BM Insurance Oval (4pm).

THE Tiwi Bombers stillbelieve they can play finalsfootball.

Grand finalists in the pasttwo seasons and premiers in2011-12, the Bombers havestruggled for consistencythis campaign and are eightpoints outside the top five.

‘‘We’re still a chance andin our situation you try andtake whatever you can,’’joint Tiwi coach CameronHotton said.

‘‘Looking at the draw,

we’re eight points out of thefive but if things go to planand Tahs lose the games youexpect them to against Night-cliff and Saints, there is anopening there for us if we canstart winning matches.’’

Hotton said his team’s fin-als fate ‘‘probably’’ rests onwho loses Saturday’s clash at

Gardens Oval between Wara-tahs and Districts.

‘‘If Tahs get up, we’re prob-ably no chance of catchingthem, but if Districts winwe’re only a game and a halfbehind them,’’ he said.

Yuendumu star Liam Jur-rah is a chance to resumeagainst the Buffaloes on Sat-

urday if he can satisfy theclub’s hierarchy is he is rightto return.

Hotton said the pre-Christmas competition hadstepped up a bit from pre-vious years and the Bomberswere grounded without theirusual fly-in, fly-out players.

‘‘Even so, we gave a lot ofour young guys a run andreally weren’t that far away,’’he said.

‘‘We got belted by the topthree when Saints, Wan-derers and Nightcliff gave usa touch up, but there were acouple we should have won.

‘‘That includes last weekagainst Districts when wethought we’d done enoughlate in the game and took ourfoot off the pedal a bit. We lostto Tahs by a couple of pointsbefore Christmas (and) thathas come back to hurt us.’’

Hotton agreed with pop-ular sentiment that pointedto the loss of 400-plus gameswith Simon Munkara, Ed-ward Darcy and Ephrem Tip-ungwuti out of the side.

‘‘Having Simon in the teamwould be great, but he decidedhe’d had enough at the start ofthe season,’’ Hotton said.

Umpires bossdenies revoltRUMOURS of an NTFLumpiring revolt have beensquashed by umpiring man-ager Mark Noonan.

The NT News received anemail yesterday from ananonymous source, claiminghe was an officiating umpire.

The text read: ‘‘I won’t bemaking myself available toumpire this weekend and Iwill be encouraging my fellowumpires to do the same. Anumpire of Darwin.’’

Noonan denied any know-ledge of the text or any mur-murings of discontent amonghis troops.

Asked if the reason for thetext had anything to do withthe high-profile Daniel Mot-lop case, Noonan played downany logic behind such an ex-treme text.

That included the origins ofthe email address that accom-panied the message.

‘‘That’s not one I know of,’’he said.

Motlopgets ninematches

Colin Schwartz

FromBackPage

The 31-year-old was handedeight weeks for a front-oncharge Henry Labastida andan additional one week forstriking John Anstess in thethird quarter, which resultedin Motlop being sent from thefield against St Marys.

Wanderers have indicatedthey will not appeal the decis-ion. It is believed Motlop hasalready accumulated morethan 10 suspensions acrosshis AFL, SANFL, NTFL andRiver Murray FootballLeague careers. Under AFLpolicy, once a player reaches16 weeks of suspension theyare automatically de-registered for 12 months be-fore given thechance to appeal,which is onlygranted under‘‘exceptional cir-cumstances’’.

AFLNT onlyhave Motlop’s NTFL suspen-sions (five weeks) on record.

The league is waiting forhis tribunal records from oth-er state bodies before decid-ing on de-registration.

But Motlop may avoid auto-matic de-registration giventhe policy states a player mustbe given a written warning ifthey are approaching the li-mit, which has not occurred.

Regardless of the outcome,Wanderers club developmentmanager Colin Schwartz saidMotlop will bounce back big-ger and stronger.

‘‘Wanderers football areclub are disappointed in thetribunal findings,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m sure that Daniel willapply himself very stronglyin his next endeavour.’’