Young guns fly Far North’s flag
WHAT a week for Far North Queensland’s NRL players.
It started last Wednesday night when Cairns’ Hamiso TabuaiFidow and Tully’s Thomas Flegler not only made their State of Origin debuts for Queensland, but played a part in what was an important victory for the Maroons to deny the Blues a whitewash.
Entering the match, the Maroons had scored just six points in the series so far, and had not scored a point in their last 126 minutes on a field.
Cue the Hammer, the fleetfooted speedster needing only 17 minutes of Origin football to break the Maroons’ drought, as he burst on to an offload from a rampaging Tino Fa’asuamaleaui to score a try that gave Queensland the kind of confidence boost it had been searching for.
Flegler’s inclusion in the side raised a few eyebrows, but it didn’t faze him as he produced a solid 18minute stint in the middle to do the town of Tully and the state of Queensland proud.
But the party for Far North footy fans didn’t stop there.
Tabuai-Fidow took his Origin form back to clubland, running for 271m and adding another highlight to his reel with a runaway try in the Cowboys’ loss to the Roosters, while Flegler scored just his second try in 52 NRL appearances
in the Broncos’ loss to the Tigers.
However, it was the performance of two other Far North juniors in just their third NRL games that solidified how good the region is going.
Xavier Savage announced himself as a star of the future with a breakout performance for the Raiders, finishing with 246 running metres, including 63 postcontact, and nine tackle breaks.
He was gifted his first NRL try by Raiders’ teammate Seb Kris, who could have scored himself but dished it off to his mate instead. But the moment of the match was Savage’s blistering break down the
middle that resulted in a Raiders’ four-pointer. The eyes-up footy of Innisfail junior Bailey Biondi-Odo was also on display in the Bulldogs’ loss to the Rabbitohs.
Biondi-Odo had an immediate impact off the bench, darting out of dummy-half and bamboozling the Bunnies’ defence to set up Aaron Schoupp, before swooping on a wayward South Sydney pass to score under the sticks in the second half.
It’s not often you see four Far North products scoring tries for four different NRL teams in the space of a few days.
What a week, indeed.