The Cairns Taipans have taken a hard-fought 116-110 win over bitter rivals the Townsville Crocodiles in a Philips Championship pre-season clash at SeaFM Stadium on Thursday night.

Playing without abset Boomers star Brad Newley and recently arrived American import point guard Jelani Gardner, Townsville fought their way from 24 points down during the third quarter to take the lead in the fourth on the back of some sweet shooting from John Rillie, Kelvin Robertson and Larry Abney.

Despite a game-high 37 points from Rillie (as well as nine rebounds and four assists) and handy 28 and 10 boards from Abney, it wasn't enough as the Snakes slithered their way to a win behind Martin Cattalini's own 24-point haul.

Townsville coach Trevor Gleeson was upbeat despite the loss.

"You'd like to get a win, we're competing to win, not just to run up and down," he told the Townsville Bulletin's Antony Stewart.

"I was happy with some aspects, to find out where we are, so we'll get back. We've got another five weeks to get ready for our first game and hopefully we can iron out a few of those problems."

The Crocs threatened to start new coach Gleeson's reign with a win early, as Townsville led by six points with five minutes remaining.

From a two-point advantage (26-24) with a little over two minutes remaining in the first quarter, Townsville could only look on as Cattalini and his Taipans teammates scored 29 of the next 33 points.

The Crocodiles didn't even manage their first field goal of the second quarter until more than six minutes into the second term and by halftime the Snakes led 66-48.

Gleeson said his team showed some real heart to make a late comeback.

"We got a little glimpse of that in the second half," he said. "I think we lost it in the last two minutes of the first quarter and then the first five minutes of the second quarter, we just weren't in sync."

"But that's going to happen with a new team, new chemistry and we have got to find out what works for each other."

"But I was very pleased with our effort in the second half, we had chances to put the game away but obviously we have got to learn to win."

Rob Rose, who made his first appearance in Cairns colours against his former club, had one point, two rebounds and one assist in 17 minutes of court time.

CAIRNS TAIPANS 116 (M Cattalini 24, D Mee 20, A Stewart 19)
TOWNSVILLE CROCODILES 110 (J Rillie 37, L Abney 28, D Egan 14).