Taipans see bright side

‘We proved a lot of people wrong’

CO-CAPTAIN Nate Jawai has forecast a bright future for the Taipans following their breakthrough 2019-20 campaign.

After the Taipans bowed out of the NBL finals on Thursday night, beaten 93-82 by the Perth Wildcats in game three of their semi-final series, the 33-year-old big man described Cairns’ season as “special”.

Noting Cairns had gone from the bottom of the ladder 12 months ago to within touching distance of reaching a third grand final, Jawai said: “It has been an incredible season – a lot of people wrote us off from the start, but we proved a lot of people wrong.

“It is not the way we want to go out, but at the end we can all look at each other and say we did something special for the Taipans and the city of Cairns.

“It is exciting, it is going to be bright in the future for this club.”

Fellow co-captain DJ Newbill said over the next few days the Taipans’ playing group would reflect on the mistakes they made in Game Three.

“I feel like we had a great chance to come in here and win and move on,” the NBL’s defensive player of the year said.

“Like coach Mike (Kelly) said, I am extremely proud of our group – we came in and fought.

“Off course we will look back and see things that we could have did differently.”

Jawai said the Taipans had battled to the end, which was a trait he felt his squad had shown for the entire campaign.

“This group has a fighting character. We have been through ups and downs all season,” he said.

“It was a good fight tonight. We were down 18 and came back – that is the identity of the group.”

Both Jawai and Newbill are coming out of contract.