AFL chiefs praise Cairns’s staging of season opener

the first round one match, and despite a late surge of supporters arriving just after 6pm it wasn’t enough to fill the space, which has a capacity to hold 13,500.

The empty seats were no surprise for Cairns man and AFL fan Shane Miller.

“I think numbers will be down on previous years because of the weather and it’s not the time of year that gets Victorians to travel to watch football,” he said.

But the weekend’s downpour didn’t stop him from putting on his wet weather gear to cheer on from the sidelines.

“We get limited opportunity to watch any game of football, so if you don’t come to this one you miss it basically unless you want to travel,” he said.

“I grew up following the sport. I love everything about it, the competitive nature of it.”

Jane Clarke from AFL Cairns said despite the relatively low attendance, organisers were buoyed by the feedback.

“It’s still great that you can get a national code here in Cairns,” she said.

“People didn’t have come, and they still did.

“The feedback we got from the club was that they thought the facilities, and the way that to the water drained off the oval after the first quarter, was just really outstanding.

“So it was really commented on that even though there was bad weather, the facilities held up very well.”

Ms Clarke said AFL Cairns would love to host the Suns again in the Far North.

“Obviously, they’re here because of the Commonwealth Games, but at the end of the day, we’ll go into negotiations with them,” she said.

“We don’t know whether we’ll have another game this year, but we’d love to have them back at this stage.”