SAINTS’ 30 STRAIGHT TRIUMPHS
How a group of women ‘who wanted a kick’ became an AFL Cairns powerhouse
WHEN a group of women got together in 2018 to found a Cairns Saints women’s AFL team, they did it for the pure enjoyment of the sport.
Fast-forward to 2022, however, and the team has carved itself a title of FNQ’s most dominant team of the last three years.
Coming off the back of two premierships in a row, a mass departure of talent – including coach Chris Novy – from the squad had team veteran Kate Fowles fearing for the team’s 2022 campaign.
“We ended up losing half of our 2021 team and our coach, we were worried we wouldn’t get the numbers for this year,” Fowles said.
“In January, because we had no coach, it was just me trying to get a bunch of girls to train and it looked like we would be short for numbers.
“But word of mouth got around and everyone’s been enjoying training and hanging out with everyone.
“The Saints culture just gets girls coming back week in, week out.”
Despite the pre-season jitters, the Saints remain the clear-cut force in
AFL Cairns, netting 30 wins in a row dating back to 2020.
Saints president Craig Hards said a lot of the success came from the ability to land multiple coaches who were heavily invested in seeing the players succeed.
Former coach Novy found himself landing the coaching role in his first year with the Saints in 2020, proving both popular and successful.
After his departing in 2022, the team was on a brief hunt for a new leader, who ended up being Jonah Lafferty – roped into the gig just weeks after getting to the Far North.
“Over the last four years, we’ve had some great coaches with some great commitment to the women’s game,” Hards said.
“I think there’s over 40 registered girls … it’s great to see such enthusiasm towards girls’ football.”
As someone who’s been involved since day one, Fowles said she could not have imagined the squad would become an unstoppable force that’s produced multiple AFLW, VFLW and QAFLW players in its short lifespan.
However, the 29-year-old said the team wasn’t too focused on long-term winning streaks, and more eager to zero in on a coveted three-peat.
“Pretty much the whole team isn’t here from the start of the streak, so it’s not really relevant to the whole team,” she said.
“For now, we’re just focusing on getting enough numbers on the track, working on our strengths and trying to get a bit of structure coming toward the end of the season.
“Thirty (wins) is unbelievable, but we didn’t even realise it was our 30th when we won.
“We’re not too fazed on losing, we’ll just keep playing our game and ourselves.”
Commanding the longest win streak in modern AFL Cairns Women’s (post-2015), the Saints have been tested mightily this year as the target on their back grows ever larger.
But as season fatigue wears on, the girls in the red, black and white remain untouched.
“There’s a lot of good competition in this league, we can very easily be beaten, which has been shown this year,” Fowles said.
AFL Cairns is on a bye this weekend due to the intrastate rep clash.