OF THE limited grainy vision that exists of the 1964 SANFL Grand Final, won by South Adelaide in a story for the ages, one player from the two teams stands out so much as if he'd been plucked from a completely different game and time, and specially placed into this whirlwind of a match to decide a premiership.
Which is just about exactly what did happen to David Kantilla, and his story as one of the trailblazers of football.
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That premiership remains the last won at senior level in SA by the Panthers, and was their first triumph since way back in 1938 – a nearly 90-year period now with just one drink from the cup of success.
Incredibly, South Adelaide had finished dead last in the 1963 season, and had indeed finished last or second-last in 18 out of 20 years leading into this one amazing year where they would face Port Adelaide for the pennant – a team that had won eight premierships alone within the last 10 seasons.
They went bottom to top in their first year under Hall of Fame member Neil Kerley and Kantilla was best on ground that day, sharing the ruck duties with fellow Hall of Famer Peter Darley, who was so memorably inducted last year as a mischievous 80-year-old still carrying a wicked sense of humour.
Kantilla, who now joins his ruck partner in the Hall of Fame, is a beacon as the tall, lithe man from the Tiwi Islands.
Standing nearly 6'6 in the old language (196 cm) and a head above most on the field, Kantilla moves beautifully around the field and plays in sharp contrast to everyone else, nearly all of whom were stocky in the legs, bulky around the hips and powerful across the chest and shoulders in a time when the game was always played with heavy body contact and where courage to get the ball was paramount.
He was the solitary Northern Territory import who simply jumped over people to take pack marks, ran around the ground like the rovers a foot shorter than him, and opened the path behind him for a generation of NT footballers to head south to the traditional footy states and grace their game with their skills.
Without Kantilla who was first, there would not be the likes of Rioli and Long who followed from the islands much later.
David Kantilla joins the Hall of Fame with a full CV as a member of the Indigenous Team of the Century, a dual Knuckey Cup winner as best and fairest for the Panthers and a four-time premiership star of St Mary's in the NTFL, where he has long been a Legend within the NT Hall of Fame. A mobile big man who could mark exceptionally and liked to kick a goal – bagging six on his SANFL debut.
But achieving all this in 1960s Adelaide, when Indigenous people of the time were not even acknowledged as citizens of Australia, was simply incredible.
To even arrive into Adelaide in 1961 to join the lowly Panthers who were on a recruiting spree to try and improve, South Adelaide had to seek special permission from NT authorities that Kantilla be allowed to leave his community, as all travel and movement for Indigenous people in the north was heavily scrutinised and controlled.
The draconian rules of the time imposed on Indigenous communities also required the club to provide weekly updates back to authorities in Darwin on where he was going, how he was filling his days, who he met with away from football, and assurances that he would not be around alcohol, cigarettes or gambling.
Further, his wife Genevieve was profoundly deaf and could only communicate with her husband while away from their wider family back home, rendering her time in the south desperately lonely at times while David sought to establish himself.
Yet Kantilla was still a sensation.
Six goals on his league debut.
Best and fairest in his first two seasons.
State representative with South Australia and on the path to being the first Tiwi man to play 100 senior games in a major southern competition, and dominant in the 1964 flag.
Darley, his ruck partner and one of just five surviving Panthers from that famous flag, still marvels six decades later how he did it, and laying the path to Hall of Fame greatness that would one day be followed by fellow Tiwi men Maurice Rioli and Michael Long.
"He was an incredible player with great hands and a leap that no one had seen before," Darley recalled.
"We were all stuck to the ground and David would be flying over packs and grabbing the ball, and then just as soon he was running around beneath the packs just as fast as the rovers.
"The South fans loved him from the day he arrived and he was a very influential figure in the history of the South Adelaide footy club, because of what he did in that premiership in his time with us.
"I loved him as a fantastic teammate and it was a terrible shock to us when he was taken so early, well before his time (passing away in a car accident in 1978)."
Kantilla rocketed into the state team and the Panthers' success was built around his partnership with Darley, while the legendary Kerley would use his physical style to clear a path for Kantilla and look after him on-field.
"David could handle the physical stuff on the field but Kerley made sure everyone from the opposition left him alone to just play, and he'd just light up a game and give us an incredible lift every time he did something special," Darley said.
"The biggest challenge for David, and probably the reason he didn't play much longer, was that it was just such an adjustment to live in Adelaide and the cold winters were unbearable for him.
"He'd head back home the moment the season was over and he'd arrive as late as possible before the next season because the weather and the temperature was just so different for him and such a massive adjustment."
Without fail, after a winter game or training session, Kantilla would head to the rooms for a long warm bath to try and fend off the cold, and earned his nickname 'Soapy' after a famous post-game celebratory shot in the bath covered in suds.
"We were blessed to have him as long as we did and after my playing days, it was a regular highlight during the summer to head up north and go out to Bathurst Island to see him," Darley says.
"We'd see incredible players everywhere when we'd visit David and the biggest surprise was why it took so long for clubs to realise what great players were there in the north and could join you and make you better, provided you could make them feel welcome.
"The people at South welcomed David from his first day and he paid us back more than we could ever imagine with how he played but more so with the memories he gave us."
The Hall of Fame is the ultimate acknowledgement for a great player but it is no surprise for anyone who knows their NT footy history with his expansive list of honours.
In 1997, Kantilla was inducted into the Northern Territory Hall of Champions, while the main function room at the NTFL headquarters at TIO Stadium is named after him.
Two decades ago, in 2004, Kantilla was inducted into the South Adelaide Hall of Fame and a year later he was named in the Australian Football Indigenous Team of the Century.
In 2010, he was awarded Legend status in the AFL Northern Territory Hall of Fame.
South's best first-year league player award, the "David Kantilla Memorial Trophy", is named in his honour while his 1962 Knuckey Cup sits proudly in the main foyer trophy cabinet at the club's Noarlunga headquarters.
Now, David Kantilla resides in the Hall of Fame, as the one who first showed it could be done to succeed in the south from the islands of the north.
David Kantilla
- 113 games for South Adelaide 1961-66, 106 goals
- 180 (est) games for St Mary's 1958-59 – 1968-89
- 4 Games for SA
- South Adelaide Best and Fairest 1961, 1962
- St Mary's Best and Fairest 1960/61
- South Adelaide Premiership 1964 (Best on Ground)
- St Mary's Premierships 1958/59, 1959/60, 1965/66 and 1966/67 (plus seven losing grand finals)
- First Tiwi Island player with substantive career in the SANFL
- Indigenous Team of the Century (Interchange)
- NT Team of the Century (ruck, vice-captain)
- NTFL Hall of Fame (Legend)
- 1968/69 St Mary's Captain / Coach
