FORMER AFL player Liam Jurrah is poised to learn his fate, with the jury in his assault trial retiring to consider their verdict.

The five men and seven women on the jury began deliberating on Wednesday afternoon after an eight-day trial that heard from 17 witnesses.

Five witnesses during the trial said they saw Jurrah use a machete in March last year to attack his cousin Basil Jurrah.

If found guilty the footballer could be jailed for 14 years.

Prosecutors have alleged the former AFL player was involved in two violent incidents at the Little Sisters town camp on March 7 last year.

During the trial the court was told that two groups clashed at the camp in a brawl that had its roots in a longstanding inter-family feud from the outback town of Yuendumu.

The defence team used its final address to try to throw doubt on whether some witnesses truly saw what they claimed.

Defence counsel Jon Tippett QC said many of those involved in the brawl had been drinking on the day of the incident at Little Sisters, it was dark, and nearly all witnesses had a motive for not telling the truth.

Mr Tippett said the alleged victim Basil Jurrah "wrote himself out of the script" by claiming he had gone to Little Sisters to visit relatives, and not for a fight, as other witnesses said.

"He (Basil Jurrah) travelled from one place to another for a reason and it wasn't to visit a relative and have a cup of tea," he said in his summary of the case.

Some witnesses had changed their stories and the testimony from others did not fit with the injuries sustained by Basil Jurrah, Mr Tippett said.

Some witnesses could think themselves to be certain about what they saw, but in actuality be wrong, he told the jury.

Prosecutor Steve Robson had earlier said that while some evidence given by different witnesses was inconsistent, this was expected because different people saw the same event from different perspectives.

"Don't just look at each person's evidence in isolation," Mr Robson told the jury in his summation.

"I would suggest to you, you have a solid core of consistency (between eyewitnesses)," Mr Robson said.