Former Tigers player dies

ONE of the best rugby league fullbacks never to represent Papua New Guinea died in Lae on Tuesday. Julius Casey, a rangy fast-running back, never made it past the Northern Zone side to the Kumul squad.
He died at his Kamkumung house. His incisive runs and bone-jarring tackles left many an opponent shattered, enabling club Morobe Tigers to ride a crest in the 1980s.
Casey, of Boiken, East Sepik parents, was still in his teens, barely out of Lae provincial high school in 1980, when he made his first grade debut. He was left to raise his three children by himself when his wife died in 2002.
Brothers Bonnie Gabriel, Mathias sister Mala and relatives on Wednesday held a funeral at St Michaelís Catholic Church before he was laid to rest at Hengali village near Butibam village yesterday.