Innisfail footy player Ronan Doolan, 23, convicted of selling cocaine, MDMA and cannabis

A young Innisfail rugby league player turned drug peddler employed three runners in his “significant set-up” supplying cannabis, MDMA and cocaine, a Cairns court has heard.

Generic Shot of dried marijuana and a rolled joint. Picture: Istock

A young Innisfail rugby league player turned drug peddler employed three runners in his “significant set-up” supplying cannabis, MDMA and cocaine, a Cairns court has heard.

Ronan Doolan, 23, pleaded guilty in Cairns District Court to trafficking cannabis, five counts of supplying cocaine and one count of supplying MDMA between 2020 and 2023.

Crown prosecutor Kurt McDonald told the court Doolan ran a drug supply operation in the Innisfail area on the Cassowary Coast.

“He came to police attention and a warrant was obtained and his phone was perused revealing his criminality,” he said.

Mr McDonald told the court the first occasion was the sale of MDMA but Doolan escalated when he started trafficking cannabis.

“That involved the selling of street sale levels of cannabis, that involved some sales as high as $800,” he said.

The estimated turnover from the drug sales was about $17,000 for a rather meagre profit, Mr McDonald said.

A young Innisfail rugby league player turned drug peddler was convicted for supplying cannabis.

Police investigation of Doolan’s phone found images of wads of cash with “quite a degree of yellow and green” and screenshots of the notes app containing “tick sheets”.

“He had some runners as notified by the tick sheets. He used these three men to distribute cannabis around the Innisfail community,” he said.

Mr McDonald said the young man was also “dabbling” in the commercial sale of cocaine.

“It is a rather significant set-up for a young man, with a bit of a network over a protracted period,” he said.

Defence counsel Thomas Feeney told the court Doolan was a young man of otherwise “good character” who, through his offences, had displayed an “inherent set of skills that he could make useful in the community”.

He said Doolan often worked with his father contracting on banana farms and was a keen rugby league player.

Mr Feeney submitted that the profit collected by Doolan was relatively low, “around $6000-8000” and put the offending down to “youthful stupidity combined with the allure of easy money”.

Judge Joshua Trevino KC said the offending was a “cynical commercial exercise for profit” and small reward for high risk was often the case.

“You peddled harmful drugs into our community for a significant period of time and you did that for profit,” he said.

Justice Trevino sentenced Doolan to three years’ imprisonment but said he would benefit from supervision in the community and released him onto immediate parole.

Originally published as Innisfail footy player Ronan Doolan, 23, convicted of selling cocaine, MDMA and cannabis