The mighty CQUniversity Cairns Taipans have kicked off season 2016/17 with a great performance against East Washington University on Sunday, delivering a 90-67 win to kickstart their season.

The main storyline was off season acquisitions Mitchell MCCarron making his debut in the Orange as well as two of the Snakes three new imports Travis Trice and Fuquan Edwin also pulling on the Taipans jersey for the first time. coach Fearne asking his team to set the tone for the season with physicality, effort and energy and his troops delivered.

Coach Fearne set the tone for the upcoming season, asking his team to provide physicality, effort and energy on the floor… and his troops delivered.

Taipans Huddle vs EWU Pic thanks to gordong.com

Trice, a 6’0 point guard from Michigan State, was outstanding and showed the Cairns crowd early what he’s made of. Regarded in College as one of the best ball handlers in the NCAA those handles were on display regularly getting in the lane and setting up his wing spot up shooters as well as scoring for himself.

McCarron the Australian Guard from the same university as Mark Worthington (Metro State) he again is another really exciting player for snakes fans. He possesses amazing athleticism showing this on the Boards getting a couple of putbacks and dunking a couple as well on the break.

Fuquan Edwin was named the player of the game providing an outstanding form on both ends of the floor. The Seaton Hall alumni comes to the NBL from the D-League with a fantastic reputation of being an elite defender and the ability to be able to guard the opponent’s best player will be a big enough draw card to coach Fearne.

“Fu” also showed his ability on the offensive end collecting a bunch of spot up threes showing how great of a player he will be in that 3 and D role.

Stevie Weigh showed it wasn’t all about the “new guys”. His performance allowed the fans to see he was in good shape after coming off a crippling injury which kept him out for the majority of last season. Weigh shot the ball very well showing there seems to be no lingering injury issues for fans to be concerned about. The Taipans are now travelling to Rockhampton to take on Perth and

The Taipans now travel to Rockhampton to take on Perth and both games will be covered by our Cairns correspondent on twitter Sean Walsh @TaipansWriter so be sure to follow him to get some great coverage on all the Taipans pre-season games!