Sport
2 August, 2025
Billy competes at highest level
THE Port Douglas Heat has another young athlete competing on the highest stage with 13-year-old Billy Meager recently showing out for the Cairns Marlins at the U14s state championships in Townsville.
The competition took place earlier last month where Billy competed against some of the state’s best prospects to try to bring back the state championship title to Cairns.
This season marked three straight rep seasons where Billy has played for the Marlins (division 1) side at state championships, where his overall player development and growth has been rapid.
For the past two seasons, Billy has been a player off the bench trying to impress on the limited playing time he was given.
This season, though, Billy got his biggest chance of his young career being given a starting role where he was able to grow his skillset more than he previously was able to.
This season was unique for Cairns as they had a super strong squad coming out in this U14s boys’ cohort.
Billy and the Marlins finished second in their NQJBC competitions, giving the boys plenty of hope entering state championships.
Billy had a rocky start to his 2025 rep campaign dealing with a variety of injuries and having either very limited or no court time to prevent any further injury or damage.
During his injury cooldown, Billy was super lucky to have former Australian Opal Shelly Burston as his coach and former Cairns Taipan Matt Burston as his assistant, who worked with him very closely and finetuned his skillset for his biggest state championship yet.
Over the four days the Marlins played seven games, walking away with a record of four wins and three losses, unfortunately just missing out on play-offs and a medal.
Despite the record, Billy had his strongest campaign yet, having a great scoring average and being a defensive anchor for the Marlins.
This performance hasn’t gone unnoticed with Billy being picked to be a part of the Cairns FDP program, meaning he’ll be part of the extended squad and working hard to compete for Queensland North at national championships later in the year.
