Saints’ march south helps Lions claim crown

TEENAGE Cairns Saints pair Jacob Heron and Caleb Graham lifted a QAFL premiership with Palm BeachCurrumbin on Saturday afternoon.

The Far North players (left) played their role as the Lions made Labrador surrender their premiership title, 14.20 (104) to 7.9 (51) at Wally Fankhauser Reserve.

Graham was last week invited to the AFL All Stars match in Victoria as a precursor to the 2018 draft.

Heron is considered a chance to be rookie-listed by the Gold Coast Suns in this year’s AFL Draft.

CAIRNS Marlin Aron Farmer is off representing his country this week. The athletic forward is in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, for the Melanesian Cup, which runs from Wednesday to Saturday this week. Farmer was a part of the 2016 Cairns Marlins championship squad.

Basketball PNG executive officer and former Cairns Marlin Joel Khalu is also involved with the PNG team.

The tournament’s participants include teams from nations such as Fiji, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

FORMER Cairns Dolphin Cayla George has returned to the Townsville Fire squad after completing her season with the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA. George and import Sydney Wiese, who clashed in the WNBA semi-finals, did not feature in the Fire’s 2-0 series win over Perth at the Wilmar Sugar Burdekin Blitz over the weekend.

The Townsville club will now face the Townsville Academy Heat before their opening game of the WNBL season on October 7 against Melbourne.

■INDIANNA Tillett, Hagigi Mosby and the Queensland under-18 touch football team has been pipped for top spot at the National Youth Championships.

NSW Combined High Schools won the final 7-6 on Saturday.

Mosby could not keep up her tryscoring form in the decider, having scored 10 tries in seven games in the lead-up.

Tillett scored four tries during the carnival.