Netball’s Quiet Revolution: First Nations Players Transforming the Game
For decades, netball has been the sport Australian girls flocked to, yet its most sacred stage has barely featured First Nations stars. Three names. That’s it.
- Marcia Ella-Duncan.
- Sharon Finnan-White.
- Donnell Wallam.
Three Indigenous women in the long history of the Diamonds, and a 22-year gap between the second and the third. In a code that prides itself on participation, the elite end has told a very different story.
Wallam’s decision in 2024 to leave Australia for New Zealand ripped the lid off what many inside the game already knew. On her way out, she pointed to New Zealand clubs’ “respect for inclusion and culture” as a decisive factor. It was more than a career move; it was an indictment.
Her words landed hard. Especially in Brisbane.
The Firebirds, Wallam’s former club, suddenly found themselves at the centre of allegations of a “toxic culture”. Netball Australia could not look away. An investigation was launched, and with it came a broader reckoning: if the sport wanted more First Nations players on court, it had to make sure they actually felt safe there.
From that storm, something new began to take shape.
A Black Swans breakthrough
Netball Australia moved quickly to do more than issue statements. It appointed Ali Tucker-Munro as General Manager First Nations, a former Diamonds squad member with deep roots in the game and community.
Under her watch, the Black Swans were born — Australia’s first official First Nations team.
They didn’t just exist; they set a standard. The Black Swans rolled through the Spirit Series, launched in 2026, and went undefeated against Australia’s Pacific neighbours. Suddenly, young First Nations players had a team that looked like them, played like them, and carried their stories.
The work didn’t stop there. Tucker-Munro helped establish the First Nations Tournament, now a yearly national championship, currently unfolding at the State Netball and Hockey Centre in Melbourne. It sits alongside the Spirit Series as a key pillar in a growing First Nations calendar.
From the sidelines in Melbourne, Tucker-Munro watches players like Gabby Coffey and Scarlet Jauncey and sees something that was missing for too long: visibility.
The message is clear — this is not a token gesture. It’s a pathway.
Stuck on the cusp
Coffey knows all about pathways that stop just short of the finish line.
The 26-year-old defender, a proud Wiradjuri woman representing the Northern Territory, spent four years as a Melbourne Vixens training partner. Four years in the shadows of the elite, close enough to feel it, never quite allowed to step through.
She could see the logjam coming.
“I knew there wasn’t much movement in their defensive end, and the same with a lot of defensive ends around Australia,” she told ABC Sport.
So she did what many wouldn’t dare: she left. Coffey headed to the UK, signed with Birmingham, and spent two seasons testing herself in a different system, a different culture. Now she’s back home in Alice Springs, her career at a crossroads, but her purpose sharpening.
She hasn’t abandoned the dream of a full professional contract. Not yet. But she’s realistic enough to know that her impact might be measured in something other than caps or trophies.
Her role might be to hold the door open for the next wave.
Coffey grew up in Alice Springs, away from her own mob and country, but wrapped in the arms of the Arrernte community.
“When you grow up on other Indigenous land and tell people you’re Indigenous, they pull you into their culture,” she said. “So [my family and I] were super lucky and blessed to grow up in the centre of Australia where arguably their Indigenous culture is very sacred and traditional.”
That grounding made the move south to Melbourne even tougher. The advice from coach Gillian Lee was clear: if you want to chase netball, you go where the big teams are. The reality on arrival was harsher.
“It was really hard being away from home,” Coffey said.
She counts herself fortunate with the support she found at the Vixens, but she knows her story is not the norm.
“There’s a lot of girls who do get those opportunities to move and then don’t last because there’s just not that support in place.”
Coming from the Northern Territory adds another layer of difficulty. Squads from bigger states train together regularly; NT athletes often don’t.
“Even with competitions like these, we don’t get together until we’re here, and we’re training away from each other, so it can be quite a challenge.”
The talent is there. The geography and the structures are not always on their side.
‘If you can’t see it, you can’t be it’
Ask Coffey what changes would make the biggest difference, and she doesn’t hesitate: role models.
“If you can’t see it, you can’t be it,” she said.
Right now, there are only two Indigenous players in Super Netball. Two, in what is supposed to be the world’s premier domestic competition.
Coffey’s own journey — years as a train-on, never quite cracking a full contract — is a reminder of how brutal the final step can be. She understands the tension at the heart of the league. Super Netball attracts top international stars, and she loves that.
“We get a number of internationals [coming to Super Netball], which I think makes the game better and more exciting, and I don’t think [that] should be restricted,” she said.
But that doesn’t mean the system can’t do more.
“I do think there should be more focus on bringing Indigenous girls into the elite level.”
Netball Australia’s plan to add two new teams to the competition looms as a crucial moment. More teams mean more list spots. More chances. Less brutal arithmetic at the selection table.
Coffey even floats the prospect of a New Zealand side joining in, suggesting it could relieve some of the pressure on Australian players all fighting for the same limited contracts.
For now, though, every Indigenous player who makes it through is punching through layers of history.
From idol to teammate, from teammate to leader
On the other side of the country, Scarlet Jauncey is living that reality in real time.
The Yaruwu defender from Rubibi/Broome has spent the last year as a training partner with West Coast Fever. At training, she finds herself lining up against one of the sport’s most dominant shooters, Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard, and occasionally has to remind herself this is not a dream.
Jauncey doesn’t want fewer internationals either.
“We’re happy to be playing against the best in the world, that’s what we want,” she said.
Like so many young First Nations players, she grew up watching Donnell Wallam and seeing, perhaps for the first time, an Indigenous shooter owning the Super Netball stage.
“I think it just gives us something to strive towards, knowing that we can be in that space,” she said.
In 2025, Jauncey captained the Black Swans. The kid who once looked up to Wallam suddenly found herself wearing the armband for a national First Nations side. She became the role model.
“It was the best tournament I’ve played in, the best teams I’ve been with,” she said.
The impact of that environment runs deeper than results. It’s about connection.
“I think just being able to come to First Nations tournaments and having that connection with each other has been really great.”
Coffey feels it too. She calls it “goosebumps”.
“I think it gives not only myself, but a lot of players so much power and push to keep going and play at the highest level,” she said.
Those tournaments are not just fixtures on a calendar. They’re fuel.
Building cultural safety, not just pathways
Back at the State Netball and Hockey Centre, Tucker-Munro listens to Coffey and Jauncey talk about the Black Swans and the First Nations Tournament and can’t hide her smile. This is exactly why she fought for these programs.
“These tournaments are aspirational in terms of trying to inspire the next generation of our kids — who we know love sport and netball in particular — to trial for their respective state and territory,” she said.
It’s not just about the kids playing this week, either.
“It’s about the kids that are here this week wanting to aspire to take that next step into the big leagues in terms of Super Netball and Australian representation as well.”
But Tucker-Munro knows that simply opening the door to elite squads is not enough. You can’t invite First Nations athletes into a space that doesn’t understand them and call it progress.
“First Nations people come into these spaces with our culture and community on our back, as well as cheering us on, so you want to do them proud,” she said.
The burden is heavy. The relocation, the distance from home, the pressure to succeed — it all adds up.
“It’s also a tough journey, especially for the kids who have to relocate, so it’s about thinking strategically about how we can support them.”
Since Tucker-Munro’s appointment, Netball Australia has formed a First Nations Cultural Council and run a cultural safety review, built in collaboration with community. It didn’t just focus on players. Coaches, umpires and the wider workforce all had their say.
The findings underlined what many already knew: the barriers are “multi-faceted”. Money. Distance. Access. A system built around major cities that too often overlooks remote and regional talent.
“For too long our voice has been very silent,” Tucker-Munro said.
She is careful to stress that there is no single First Nations experience.
“We’re not a homogenous people, so it’s really important that we make sure we’re hearing the voices of many.
“One thing we’re really big on in our community is not to do things for us or to us, you’ve got to do it with us.”
That last line is more than a slogan. It’s a challenge to every club, every coach, every administrator who wants to be part of the sport’s future.
Because netball is changing. The Black Swans exist. The First Nations Tournament is growing. The Spirit Series has already produced an undefeated First Nations team against Pacific opposition.
And behind it all, there is a clear intent, as Tucker-Munro puts it, “to actually drive some of this change across the sporting landscape of netball in Australia.”
The question now is whether the rest of the game is brave enough to keep up.
