Read a first hand experience from a young family who attended our Round 1 match Cairns.
On Saturday night, as I sat huddled under an umbrella with my two-year old daughter and fiancee behind the goals at the far end of Cazalys, with rain sheeting down around us I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d have rather been.
Young Audrey is just a toddler but her love for the indigenous game is strong. Her tiny hands clenched my arm as she watched the feisty Ben Ainsworth slot two quick goals late in the second quarter.
Aaron Young followed up with a crumbing goal off a spilt marking attempt and Audrey’s head rolled into the back of her pink hoodie as she howled with giddy delight.
Later, with the ball locked up on the centre wing near the grandstand, I swear I heard her scream ‘Ball!’ as the Far North’s very own Jarrod Harbrow laid a bone-rattling tackle.
Cazalys’ bowling green-like surface resembled a World War I battlefield on Saturday night.
The crowd was sparse, the EFTPOS machines stopped working at one stage and the poor workers in the food vans must have regretted lugging all that extra stock through the gates for it just to go cold.
The rain never really ceased. Everything that could have conspired against the game happened as Cyclone Nora delivered its proverbial perfect storm a thousand kilometres away from where it made landfall.
But the crowd still roared and the game went on. The SUNS, who will play their first nine games of this season away from their Metricon Stadium home, have a mantra of ‘Any time. Any place’.
On Saturday night they proved that it was more than just lip service to their new coach, Stuart Dew.
Just like the Cairns fans who braved the storm, the Suns made the best of what they were given. And when our very own baby-faced Jack Bowes slotted a slippery Sherrin through late in the fourth term, the Suns proved they had the resilience to do just that.
At the end of the match I carried an exhausted little tot towards the gate, but as we traipsed past the merchandise tent she suddenly arose.
With a swag of footy goods in front of her, Audrey leaned over and picked up a SUNS hand clapper and started shaking it wildly. Her cheeky smile returned.
The Suns had won the game but more importantly, they also won over the crowd.
The Gold Coast SUNS thank The Cairns Post for their efforts during the club's time in the region.
