The knock-em-down season takes hold towards the end of the steamy, sweltering wet that suffocates much of the Northern Territory at the start of each year.
Violent storms flatten vegetation before the onset of the stable dry. At this time — in opposition to the rest of the country — the local rugby union competitions reach their climax.
Darwin's grand final day in 2023 brings balloons, banners, hot chips and mid-strength beer like those that preceded it, the celebrations marking the conclusion of another campaign.
But the date may ultimately be remembered as the end of an era. Perhaps for the last time on this suburban ground, an endangered species was welcome: chest-high tackles.
Rugby Australia and the international governing body World Rugby have agreed to pursue trials as the latest effort within the game — and sport more generally — to reduce concussions.
The current plan is to lower the legal tackle height in community and junior rugby from the chest to below the sternum and study its effect on player welfare and enjoyment.
Due to the NT season's timing, local discussions are focused on starting in Darwin in October.
Reaction mixed
Right now, tackling in rugby is, quite literally, close to people's hearts. NT Rugby chief executive Nathan McDonald is the man set to be given the responsibility to drag it down towards the stomach, whether he has the appetite for it or not.
Only relatively new in the job, he came over from rugby league and before that, touch football in Darwin. He found his way up north after travelling around the country with his family in 2016 and taking a liking to the Top End.
Mr McDonald said he acknowledged people's passion for the game's traditions. But he thought if the trial was done right, and refereed with the right amount of leniency, the level of opposition would be low.
"If you look at some other countries where you're going belly button-height tackles, that will get a lot of pushback," he said.
"But if we're looking at similar to New Zealand that we're just talking sternum height, I don't think we're going to get a great deal of pushback at all."
A walk around the ground suggests there may be more opposition than he expects.
Holding a beverage alongside his two friends, former player Rob did not see any need for change.
"I've grown up playing rugby league and rugby union, and I believe in the contact and the aggression," he said.
With his mullet and cap, larrikin Red echoed his view: "I'm not sure if we can change the rules so that it's, like, below the hips, because that's not rugby."
Even Palmerston Crocs women's players Tahlia and Bree, despite some concern for the risk of head trauma for themselves, were drawn to defend rugby's traditional values.
"It's a contact sport; if you don't want to get a little bit roughed up, then don't play," Bree said.
Developments overseas
Associate Professor Melanie Bussey and her team at the University of Otago have spent thousands of hours trying to untangle the masses of bodies and collisions that make up the sport.
Their work has involved putting "instrumented" mouthguards in 700 community players in New Zealand and tracking them over the season, both in training and in games.
Armed with the movement spikes triggered by the mouthguards, they then verify and classify each impact using video recordings.
Their results are preliminary, but they show that high tackles lead to more so-called "head acceleration events" for the player with the ball. But the data also breaks down the risks in other settings.
"High tackles are worse for the ball carrier," Associate Professor Bussey said.
"Tackles between the sternum and the hips tend to carry the lowest risk both to ball carrier and tackler and tackles that are low — below the hips — tend to carry a higher risk for the tackler."
Repeated head trauma has been linked to long-term cognitive decline and CTE across sports, and rugby union is just one of several settings for class actions from former players.
Though peer-reviewed papers from Associate Professor Bussey's endeavours are still some time away, their work echoes what other researchers are also discovering: that a slight tweak to the high tackle rule could lead to a reduction overall in head impacts.
There have also been promising signs from experiments in South Africa and France, prompting the decision from World Rugby last month.
It recommended member nations pursue trials with a view to rolling out the lower tackle in community and junior settings.
England's Rugby Football Union has pushed ahead and will apply a similar law to all community rugby from July.
But a 2019 trial of reducing the tackle height to the armpits in elite English rugby saw a spike in concussions when both ball carrier and tackler went low.
That experience is behind the mixed response to the latest move — including from one-time Wallaby Oliver Hoskins.
In announcing the trials, World Rugby CEO Alan Gilpin admitted "change can be difficult".
"We appreciate that there will be sections of the community game who will question this move, but we must not lose sight of the fact that such a change has the ability to enhance enjoyment, reassure parents and welcome many new participants to the sport we all love."
Making the adjustment
Palmerston Crocs president Jacob Brant hobbles off the Darwin playing field, instrumental in his side's brave but unsuccessful grand final performance. Before an embrace with his family, he told the ABC the rule change would "make a massive difference".
Placing his hands on his stomach, Brant said: "It's a big transition to come from getting hit here your whole life … to getting hit here," pounding his hands on his chest.
"It's where you hold your wind, your lungs, everything there; I don't think it's great for the sport."
The front-rower is a proud product of Darwin, having attended local high school, and worked across remote mine sites and a gas plant in varied roles ranging from welding to painting to sweeping floors.
"As president of a club, I have to support respect for the referees at the end of the day, and if that's what Rugby Australia deems what they're going to do, that's what we have to do.
"I don't think it's helping our junior players come through the ranks to play at the premium level at all."
Two thousand kilometres to the south-east, the setting could not be more different.
In front of an advertising board in the nation's capital, ACT Brumbies coach and former Wallaby Stephen Larkham said he supported the game's commitment to reducing head trauma and backed the decisions made by rugby headquarters.
The 1999 World Cup winner refuted the idea that more tackling restrictions in junior or community pathways would inhibit the progression of the game's best young talent.
"All I know is when I was coming through rugby as a junior, the only tackle we were taught was the low tackle, and we ended up being pretty good tacklers in the senior competition."
Mr Larkham said it was hard to say what the trial's outcome would be, but the defensive side of the sport was complex.
"The game's a challenge from a defensive point of view; guys are getting knocked out if they're tackling low, other guys are getting knocked out if they're tackling high," he said.
"What we're really trying to work on is making sure our technique is good in both of those situations."
That point of view — that technique is just as important as rule changes — has been hinted at in some of Associate Professor Bussey's early results, which suggest experience helps players avoid major head impacts.
It is also why World Rugby is mandating tackle technique education for players, coaches, match officials and disciplinary personnel as part of the trials.
Norm, a league and union fan from northern Darwin, watches the grand final with three generations of family.
He said whatever decision was made about the rules needed to be drummed into juniors and applied throughout every level of the game so everyone knew what the changes were and why.
"For the safety of the players' health, 100 per cent we need it," he said.
"A lot of work to do, but it starts now."
Darwin's rugby community will soon enjoy the dry season. But the storms are never far away.
