Cover Image: Aliesha Vicars
Writers: Jenny Sinclair, Ariane Virgona, Katrina Nissen, Ian Harkin
Photographers: Hannah Howard, May Bailey, Aliesha Vicars
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Results
Melbourne Mavericks 71 def Queensland Firebirds 64
West Coast Fever 67 def Adelaide Thunderbirds 61
New South Wales Swifts 82 def Giants Netball 69
Sunshine Coast Lightning 62 def Melbourne Vixens 50
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Injuries
Ruby Bakewell-Doran (Firebirds) and Sasha Glasgow (Mavericks) clashed heads and were sent off for assessment. Glasgow returned to the game fairly quickly, although Bakewell-Doran looked quite distressed on the sidelines before returning in the next quarter.
Sarah Klau (Swifts) appeared to tweak her ankle in the final five minutes of the Swifts match. She did not take further part in the match.
Cara Koenen (Lightning) was spotted at the airport in a moonboot, and while she was named in the game day 10, she didn’t take the court as a precautionary measure.
Jo Harten (Giants) also appeared to tweak her ankle.
Sarah Klau has been spending more time at goal defence this season, as part of a tall defensive circle. Image May Bailey/Clusterpix
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LET’S TALK ABOUT:
News of the Week
After 13 years as head coach of the Melbourne Vixens, Simone McKinnis announced that this season would be her last at the helm. McKinnis announced the news just after the full time whistle of the Vixens match against the Lightning, but was very careful to not use the word, ‘retire’. She alluded to a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on at Netball Victoria, so watch this space to see what is next for the two-time premiership winning coach.
Post match, McKinnis spoke of her decision. “After 13 years and seeing Netball Victoria going through all the changes, I just decided it is just the time for me to move on. I am proud of how the team has evolved over the years.”
2025 Premium Experience SSN grand final tickets are going on sale at 12pm AEST 21 May. Pre-sale for SSN members will go on sale 12pm AEST on Wednesday 18 June. General public tickets will go live 12pm Thursday 19 June. More information about the ticket sales can be found here.
On the Netball Unlocked podcast, Jace Bode (High performance manager, Adelaide Thunderbirds) confirmed that the club had known about Shamera Sterling-Humphrey’s pregnancy since her early stages at the start of February.
Bode said, “She told us at quite a delicate time for her.”
“For Shamera as a first time mother, and given everything that had played out with Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard at Fever as well, it’s a really delicate and sensitive topic in Australia at the moment.”
Sanmarie Visser, as one of the few uncontracted players of an international calibre, was immediately on the club’s radar.
Bode went on to say, “Romelda had had a knee clean out, and given that Shamera was in the infancy of being pregnant, we weren’t in the position where she wanted to disclose publicly what was happening. And so, it wasn’t a case of ‘we can replace Shamera with Sanna’ at that point in time.
“Coincidentally Romelda had hurt her knee, so there was an opportunity at that point in time to bring Sanna in as a replacement player for Romelda. Without knowing how the pregnancy was going to continue to go, we were really upfront with Sanna and her agent. We didn’t disclose that Shamera was pregnant, we just said it was likely there would be an opportunity for the season, but as a starting point for this first month while Romelda was injured, there’d be some exposure to our environment. Can you take that leap of faith and come?”
Bode gives a wide range of great insights – listen to them on Netball Unlocked here.
Five of the current seven Jamaican superstars in Super Netball. Image – Hannah Howard/On the Ball Media
Eagle eyed fans spotted Stacey Marinkovich in the background of Gretel Bueta’s Instagram post, showing the pair doing court drills together. In a half time interview with Fox, Marinkovich said that Bueta was four months post-partum and using netball as a way to regain her fitness. She remained cagey about whether the star could return to the Diamonds, just saying that Bueta has never officially retired, and “We’ll see”.
Liz Ellis confirmed on her “No Dribble” podcast that she has made a comeback, although it wasn’t for the national team! Ellis took the court for a side she coaches against an all-abilities team, at her local courts. While many may have been thrilled to hear the former Diamonds’ captain was back on court, her team reportedly told her to stick to the sidelines!
In news out of the Firebirds camp was this week’s decision of goal attack, Tippah Dwan, to step away from the sport just five weeks into the season. Dwan has been battling a knee niggle for a number of years and, with the full support of the club, is taking time out to get her body back to high-performance shape. No permanent replacement has been named, however Samoan shooter Abigail Latu-Meafou has been in the squad for the last two rounds.
With Round 1 of the ANZ Premiership completed last weekend, both Donnell Wallam and Gabi Simpson featured in their team of the week. Wallam finished with the highest number of goals – 52/57 (91%). In Simpson’s 45 minutes at centre, she finished with 20 feeds for just one turnover – a highly creditable performance for someone who hasn’t hit the court at this level for about 18 months.
This week in Round 2, Wallam followed up with 47 goals as Mystics defeated Simpson’s Pulse team. Charlie Bell and Remi Kamo have also impressed with the Stars. In Round 2, Bell shot 40/44, including three super shots in Stars’ upset win over Tactix. Charli Fidler played her first game for Tactix and finished with four gains.
Also coming out of the ANZ Premiership, two players received suspensions for dangerous play in Round 1, including a highly questionable decision against goal shooter Aliyah Dunn. So far in Super Netball for 2025, there haven’t been any such suspensions. This again brings into focus two seemingly different umpiring interpretations of the same rules.
Under the new rules, any action that results in contact to the head or neck of a player is supposed to be considered dangerous play, whether intentional or not. In SSN Round 6, Ruby Bakewell-Doran received a head knock after an incident with Sasha Glasgow. Again, no one was suspended, although it was good to see both players sent to the sidelines to be assessed.
The Super Netball Reserves continued this week. After three weeks of play, Fever and Thunderbirds lead the competition on 12 points. Tickets are free for matches happening not consecutively with SSN matches. You can find more information here and see the full home and away fixture here. Be sure to head to social media to check out the full team lists.
Results:
West Coast Fever Reserves 66 def Adelaide Thunderbirds Futures 56
Swifts Academy 60 def GIANTS Netball Reserves 53
Vixens Academy 68 def Sunshine Coast Lightning Bolts 50
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Stats of the week
In the game between Mavericks and Firebirds, there was a big contrast in shooting statistics between the teams. Mavericks’ shooters combined for 70/73 (95.9%), which is the highest shooting percentage of any team this season. Compare that to the Firebirds who shot 59/76 (77.6%). Shimona Jok finished with the brilliant figures of 61/61. Incidentally, Jok has now scored with 85 straight attempts. Her last miss was early in the 2nd quarter of Round 5.
Sasha Glasgow shot 9/12, but she took four super shot attempts, of which she was only successful with one. Those three super shot misses were the Mavericks’ only misses for the whole game. That means they were 69/69 with single goal attempts, and this is a record for Super Netball. No team has scored that many one-point goals in a match at 100%.
In 2021, on their way to winning the title, Swifts shot 63/63 in a match against Giants and this is the only occasion that a team has had a 100% success rate for shooting over an entire match in Super Netball. They didn’t attempt a super shot in that game. Before this round, there had been three other occasions of teams shooting one-point goals at 100% during a game, but none of them scored as many goals as Mavericks did in Round 6.
There has been a noticeable shift in tactics with a couple of teams this year when it comes to super shots. It is well documented that Adelaide Thunderbirds had by far the lowest number of two-point attempts in 2024. In fact, they won the grand final against Vixens without putting up a single super shot attempt during the game. But come 2025, and Thunderbirds are regularly putting up numerous attempts.
In 2024, the NSW Swifts used the super shot the most of any team. But so far in their winning start to 2025, they are down the bottom when it comes to attempts. They have been accurate with them however, which isn’t surprising as they have Super Netball’s all-time leading two-point exponent Helen Housby in their line up.
Here is a comparison of the number of super shot attempts for each team in the 2024 regular season and in 2025 so far. In just six rounds this year, Thunderbirds have already scored more super shots than they did in 14 rounds last season. It just reinforces the theory that most teams will tend to use the super shot only when they really need it.
Super Shots/attempts Rds 1-14 2024
Swifts – 123/216 (56.9%)
Giants – 118/204 (57.84%)
Firebirds – 95/174 (54.6%)
Vixens – 86/156 (55.1%)
Lightning – 77/132 (58.3%)
Mavericks – 79/127 (62.2%)
Fever – 57/117 (48.7%)
Thunderbirds – 29/61 (47.5%)
Super Shots/attempts Rds 1-6 2025
Giants – 41/78 (52.6%)
Lightning – 32/65 (49.2%)
Vixens – 33/64 (51.5%)
Thunderbirds – 31/58 (53.5%)
Firebirds – 22/54 (40.4%)
Mavericks – 22/51 (43.1%)
Fever – 13/40 (32.5%)
Swifts – 23/38 (60.5%)
Sunday Aryang and Kadie-Ann Dehaney pressuring the shot of Lauren Frew as she shoots long. Image – Hannah Howard/On the Ball Media
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MATCH WRAPS:
Mavericks v Firebirds
The Mavericks prevailed with a more disciplined and accountable performance against the Queensland Firebirds in Hobart on Saturday. With only 11 unforced turnovers, a reduction from 15 against the Fever the previous week, and significantly better capitalisation of their gained possession, with a 49% increase in gain from goal rate, the Mavericks demonstrated the form we had all been expecting. Captain Amy Parmenter returned to the court after suffering an ankle injury last week, providing a steady presence and safe ball transition in wing defence.
Parmenter recorded 2 gains, 1 intercept, and 4 deflections, alongside Olivia Lewis and Kim Brown, who combined for 4 gains, 7 deflections, and 2 rebounds. Lewis excelled in her timing to deflect Mary Cholhok’s shot, the league’s tallest shooter, on multiple occasions, which contributed to siding momentum with the Mavericks. Sasha Glasgow (8/8) and Shimona Jok (61/61) achieved 100% shooting accuracy during the 1-point period, while Molly Jovic and Tayla Fraser were able to dismantle the Firebirds’ zone defensive structures and service Jok with adequate ball.
The Firebirds’ defensive end did not seem to have answers. Isabelle Shearer and Ashlee Barnett were swapped at times to help stem the flow of high-ball feeds to Jok; yet Imogen Allison offered some reprieve, with 2 deflections, 2 intercepts, and 2 gains. Emily Moore did a wealth of work at the front, with 17 circle feeds and 11 goal assists, on par with Lara Dunkley and Macey Gardner, who combined well at wing attack and centre.
Thunderbirds v Fever
The match between two of Super Netball’s top four teams had it all – crisp attacking play and desperate defensive work, strategic rotations and an almighty fightback through supershots. Fever led for most of the game, and in a superb throughout court defence, eight of their ten players reaped gains, although Sunday Aryang led the way with seven.
With the Shamera Sterling-Humphrey fear factor missing, Fever’s attacking line purred along beautifully. Jordan Cransberg continued her rapid growth, with an MVP performance built around speed. It now seems to be a deliberate tactic to give goal attack Shanice Beckford the start, using her speed and ball placement into Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard to break open the game, then as players tire, bring on the more deliberate Olivia Wilkinson.
Latanya Wilson was a standout for the Thunderbirds, constantly hassling her opponents and pulling in four gains. Lauren Frew continued her strong start to the season, although was a little less accurate at the post than usual. In a move that thrilled the crowd, coach Tania Obst threw her two supershot specialists – Frew and Georgie Horjus – into a moving circle to try and pull back the lead. It almost worked with nine supershots narrowing the lead from 13 points to three in the last quarter. Defending that strategy is something that is a huge work on for Fever, as they’ve struggled with it again this season.
Lauren Frew and Sunday Aryang fly for the ball. Image – Hannah Howard/On the Ball Media
Hannah Petty celebrating last weekend’s 100th national league match, at home in front of fans. Image – Hannah Howard/On the Ball Media
For the second time this season at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre a player has almost ended up in the commentary bench! Image – Hannah Howard/On the Ball Media
Giants v Swifts
With a fifth straight victory over Giants, Swifts extended their unbeaten start to the 2025 season in a high-scoring NSW Derby. Winning all four quarters for the first time in 2025, they recorded their second highest ever score. Grace Nweke combined with Helen Housby and Paige Hadley to put on an attacking masterclass, resulting in quarter scores of 18, 20, 22, and 22.
Erin O’Brien was the poor Giants defender given the task of trying to stop Nweke, but it was impossible. Nweke showed complete control in the air and the feeds of Housby in particular were all placed to her advantage. Meanwhile, at the other end of the court, Teigan O’Shannassy proved to be a constant menace during her time on court, using her positioning and long reach to disrupt the Giants’ attack, and ending the game with five gains and eight deflections in an MVP performance.
Giants started the game well, going goal for goal during the first quarter, and it was a competitive game until halftime. It was in the third quarter that Swifts put their foot down, and the Giants weren’t able to go with them. They had some good performers, most notably Sophie Dwyer, Jamie-Lee Price, and Amy Sligar, but on this day, Swifts were just too classy. Giants are now alone on the bottom of the ladder with just one win, and it doesn’t get any easier with a match against Fever next week.
Verity Simmons looking over the arms of Amy Sligar. Image May Bailey/Clusterpix
Erin O’Brien had a tough assignment against Grace Nweke. Image May Bailey/Clusterpix
Jo Harten pulling in the ball. Image May Bailey/Clusterpix
Vixens v Lightning
Lightning retained their place in the top two with a comfortable victory in Melbourne. With Cara Koenen under an injury cloud and rested from the starting lineup, it was left to Reilley Batcheldor to start at goal shooter. She went on to play the best game of her Super Netball career, and finished with 48/52. Assured and confident, she did her job to perfection, well supported by captain Steph Fretwell, and Leesa Mi Mi who controlled the midcourt well, finishing with 24 assists.
In defence, Tara Hinchliffe set the tone for Sunshine Coast Lightning right from the opening whistle, picking off several gains on her way to a total of six. It was the best combination work with Courtney Bruce seen so far this season – Bruce ended on eight gains as the duo hassled the Vixens front line into frequent errors. In total, Lightning finished with 18 gains to Vixens’ six, a statistic that shows the level of control they had. This was the third time this season that Lightning has won all four quarters.
With such a Diamonds’ studded line up, it’s hard to know what’s going wrong for the Vixens. While the loss of Emily Mannix to maternity leave is an obvious one, so perhaps too is the lack of a tall shooter under the post. Sophie Garbin finished on 22/26 (85%), but standing at just 184cm can be a little hard to find, and so when the ball is in her hands, needs to shoot rather than try and work the ball in closer. Instead it was left to Lily Graham to provide a spark under the post, as she took on the defenders. However the rest of the Vixens struggled to find cohesion in attack, and were only able to pick off 6 gains. They were also badly hurt by their centre pass conversion rate, which sat at a lowly 55%.
Kate Moloney tries to cut off a pocket ball. Image Aliesha Vicars
Courtney Bruce made life uncomfortable for Sophie Garbin. Image Aliesha Vicars
Lightning placed plenty of pressure on the Vixens’ pass. Image Aliesha Vicars
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Players of the round
Amy Parmenter (Mavericks)
In stark contrast to last week, the Mavericks offered a performance that their coaches will be proud of. It is no surprise that this win came with the return of Parmenter. With the aim of maintaining the momentum with the Mavericks, she was directing play, providing an option to the ball, and smothering options at critical moments. Her inherent leadership qualities that her experience with the Diamonds no doubt has elevated are highly encouraging for the future of Australian netball.
Sunday Aryang (Fever)
Fever finished their game against Thunderbirds with 15 possession gains, and seven of them came from Aryang. Hampered by injury, she’s had a slowish start to the season, but this was the performance of a Diamonds defender. She didn’t give the Thunderbirds’ attack end a moment’s peace during the game, and was there to pounce on any mistakes. She finished with four intercepts, three rebounds, and three pickups.
Grace Nweke (Swifts)
In Round 6, Nweke put in her most dominant performance of her debut SSN season. She had been impressive in the opening five rounds, but took it to a whole new level against the Giants. Nweke was simply unstoppable in this game. She shot 64/67, took four rebounds, and ended the game with six assists as well. That is an indication of how her combination with Helen Housby is growing in confidence each week. It’s quite scary how good they could be by season’s end.
Reilley Batcheldor (Lightning)
In her first full game of the season, Reilley Batcheldor showed that she is ready for more court time. Stepping into the Lightning starting side for Cara Koenen, she played with confidence, dictating how she wanted the ball and taking charge to put up 48/52 including two supershots. This was by far her greatest return in Super Netball. Her previous highest tally of goals was 25, and that was three years ago. She has been seen as merely a bench player or a super shot specialist, but in this game, she proved she can be much more than that.
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Quotes Corner
Kiri Wills (Firebirds coach) on the progress of the team.
“I think every game we are improving. But it is not fast enough for this competition. Our 2point strategy with Emily and Mary has got legs. I think Mary is getting stronger under the post under some very physical pressure. It is really difficult because we want to win like everyone else, but as a coach I am like, ‘we actually are making steps in the right direction’. We just need to take those steps much faster and make much more progress more quickly.”
“We also need a fix in the headspace. We have to hold onto the fact that we are putting out some really good netball out there in big chunks of the game. It’s just the small moments that we need to tidy up. We have had teams in our pockets and let them go. We are skilled enough. We are fit enough. We have structure in place to keep that going but it is actually our headspace that we have to keep clear. Tonight, we went with an approach of ‘let’s lighten up a little bit’ because at training it is getting quite heavy. But at the end of the day, this is a privilege. We need to own that pressure and be in it and love it. It is easier said than done.”
Abigail Latu-Meafou on the Firebirds huddles.
“When chasing a scoreline, we need to stay connected. So with everyone bringing something to the table it is easy to get that eye-connected and chat. It’s when it [the huddles] gets quiet that we know we are in the shitter. It was nice to hear everyone encouraging each other.”
Simone McKinnis on stepping down as Head Coach at the end of the 2025 SSN season.
‘I just have to focus on this season.. I am not one for announcements… I would have happily gone and coached the season out… but Netball Victoria wants to get on with the recruitment quickly. So, by letting it all out, it lets them do so.
Kate Moloney on Simone McKinnis stepping down as Head Coach.
‘It’s a decision that has been coming for a little while now, we are so lucky to have had Simone coach us over the last 13 years… She set standards, she demanded excellence, but she had so much care for this playing group.’
Simone McKinnis on the Vixens season to date.
‘It seems a bit flat, it seems a bit lifeless I guess is a way of putting it. Maybe we just need to go to the pub’.
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Ladder
Team / Pts / %
Swifts . 24 . 117%
Lightning . 16 . 111%
Fever . 16 . 101%
Thunderbirds . 12 . 106%
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Mavericks . 8 . 95%
Firebirds . 8 . 95%
Vixens. 8 . 92%
Giants . 4 . 86%
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Next Week
(Round 7)
Sat, May 24
5pm – LIGHTNING v SWIFTS
7pm – GIANTS v FEVER
Sun, May 25
2pm – FIREBIRDS v VIXENS
4pm – MAVERICKS v THUNDERBIRDS
