Cairns’ Suns shine while Crocs snap up another premiership
As the year draws to a close, the Cairns Post takes a stroll down memory lane to revisit the big moments from AFL in 2019.
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As the year draws to a close, the Cairns Post takes a stroll down memory lane to revisit the big moments from racing.
A RED-LETTER DAY
When Cairns Saints product Caleb Graham was named to make his Gold Coast Suns debut late in the 2019 season, his presence created FNQ history.
With the teenage key defender making his first appearance at the senior level, it created history for the sport in the Far North, with four Cairns juniors playing in the same team at AFL level.
Joining Graham in the side that week was his junior teammate Jacob Heron, experienced dashing defender Jarrod Harbrow and fellow Saints product Jack Bowes.
The first-year Sun said he did not realise how significant four footballers from Cairns playing in the same team was until he got home from training that week.
“I saw the team on paper that night when they named it and I was like ‘wow four boys from Cairns’,” Graham said.
All four are signed up for next season and will be hoping to feature all together once again.
CROC DYNASTY
Port Douglas lifted their fourth straight premiership, just the second club to do so.
The Crocs have now won five of the last six flags.
On grand final day, the premiership was the Crocs’ hardest fought of the handful of recent flags.
The end scoreline, 15.9-99 to 9.11-65 against South Cairns, would show a Port victory with some ease, but for three-and-a-bit quarters of the game, they had to fight tooth and nail for everything they got.
Experienced trio Adam Boone, Wes Glass and Daniel Moore settled the ship when the Cutters were pressing their hardest.
The Crocs took control in the final term when the game was on the line, kicking seven goals to one to confirm another flag for their dynasty.
Port will be back in 2020 for more.
INVESTMENT IN NQ
John Deitz, the first full-time employee the Gold Coast Suns have put on to service their recruiting region of north Queensland, earlier this year moved to Cairns from Perth, where he had been working for Peel Thunder, who are the direct feeder club to the Fremantle Dockers.
The Suns hierarchy identified the need for more time, resources and investment into north Queensland, resulting in a new role being created, through the help of the AFL.
Deitz has been busy in his first few months in the job, travelling up and down north Queensland to get a feel of the region from Cairns to Gladstone.
Deitz will be key to the growth of the game in 2020.
KITARA MAKES HISTORY
Come the 2020 AFLW season, Kitara Whap-Farrar will be running out for the first Gold Coast Suns female team.
Kitara, a South Cairns Cutters junior, was destined to arrive at the elite level as soon as she was age eligible, dominating the AFL Cairns Women’s League over the past two seasons, winning back-to-back Jo Butland Medals as league best-and-fairest.
After two huge years, which included finishing school, juggling work, and travelling around Australia as part of the AFL Women’s Academy, Whap-Farrar feels being one of the three inaugural players for the Suns 2020 AFLW season is all worth it now.
NO ELITE GAMES
Cairns’ Cazalys Stadium will go into a second year without hosting an AFL premiership match in 2020 but local officials are working behind the scenes to see games return in the future.
The Far North hosted elite games between 2011 and 2018, with this year the first without an elite contest in that period.
The Gold Coast earlier this year struck a four-year agreement to take one game a season to Darwin.
The prospect of the Suns moving two games out of Metricon Stadium every year, to include a game in Cairns as well, is highly unlikely.
There is constant and productive dialogue between the Suns and AFL Cairns, according to league boss Gary Young, as well as other Victorian clubs with an aim to signing a longer-term deal to bring matches to Cazalys Stadium.
FNQ faces an uphill battle to get games back to Cairns in the future.
NO MORE POWER
Just a season after winning the AFL Cairns reserves premiership, Pyramid Power will not field a team in 2020, with a lack of player numbers forcing the fledgling club out.
The Gordonvale-based club are set to take a break for a season or two from the reserves competition, while putting their focus on growing their junior ranks.
It has been a tough year for the Power, who had to rebuild their club after vandals burnt and vandalised their change rooms and canteen, with the damage so severe they were left without any functioning facilities early in 2019.
The Power’s playing group has also been decimated, with many players leaving for Cairns City Lions at the start of 2019 while several are looking to cross to North Cairns this coming campaign.
MORE AFL STAR POWER
Local competition strugglers North Cairns will have a dual prong of former AFL players leading them into the future with former Geelong forward Ronnie Burns to coach the club in 2020.
After landing VFL life member and respected mentor Peter German as their full-time football manager, Burns will follow to Watsons Oval to lead the Tigers rebuild.
The acquisitions follow on from Cairns City Lions’ Aaron Davey (coach) and Centrals Trinity Beach’s Sam Blease (football manager), who have also came from the elite system into FNQ.
Originally published as Cairns’ Suns shine while Crocs snap up another premiership