photo courtesy:  Maria Girgenti (Madcap Photography)

CAIRNS have won the Foley Shield and the Northern Division section of the XXXX Challenge courtesy of a 30-28 victory over Townsville in Innisfail on Saturday night.

In front of a large crowd, the game fluctuated regularly with the lead changing six times throughout the match. But it was the Cairns side which finished the strongest to record a very popular victory in front of the parochial home crowd.

Cairns prop Peter Falefitu led from the front with numerous blockbusting charges and was well supported by a hard working Cairns pack.

This allowed the fleet-footed backline to score all of their six tries with doubles to Francis Mosby and Kane Wehi.

Five-eighth Mitchell Seri also crossed the paint as did winger Justin Casterallo.

One of the tries by Mosby was a sizzling 90 metre effort from a scrum. Wehi also showed his class when he scooped a ball up at speed from a kick to race away to score in a 10 minutes period which was the difference in the end.

Townsville were gallant in defeat and brought the margin back to two points when Nat Bowman scored with five to go.

The Townsville pack led by Dan Grevsmuhl and Todd Cockburn matched it with their Cairns counterparts but it wasn’t enough to get the Townsville side the victory.

Bowman scored two tries and kicked four goals in a strong performance for the visitors.

Aiden Topliss was the man of the match.