How netball&#039, s &#039, super&#039, former left pension to tear 12-year report

Source : ABC NEWS

With only one month left until the regular season, Round 10 is complete, there has been a significant shift at the top of the Super Netball rope.

The top-ranked Melbourne Vixens had gone undefeated for nine days flat and managed to avoid the wounds that have plagued the rest of the group. That is until Saturday night, when three important players, including Hannah Mundy ( heel ), Rudi Ellis ( knee ), and Em Mannix ( illness ), were unable to play their roles as usual.

After three consecutive losses, the Sunshine Coast Lightning were hungry to stay in touch with the best four and finally gotten their stacked lineup back in gear. They took advantage of the depleted Vixens line-up to side them their initial loss, 66-56.

The Queensland Firebirds ‘ annual Pride Match was held in Brisbane, where participants donned specially designed dresses for the occasion. Even though it was a sixth vs seventh struggle against the winless Giants, it was an essential 71-64 success to maintain momentum ticking over in their hunt for third place.

The West Coast Fever celebrated Romelda Aiken-George’s step 255th match on Sunday. She currently has the most appearances in a regional basketball league across the Commonwealth Bank Trophy, ANZ Championship, and Super Netball, all while holding the record.

Aussie Diamonds soldier Cath Cox had held the record for 12 centuries and neither star could hold back tears in the post-match display.

After calling a month off from her job at the end of last season, Aiken-George is supposed to be keeping a watchful eye on the outside. But she was lured out of pensions by brother Jamaican Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard to get her successor this time while she is on parental leave.

Aiken-George now had broken her own goaltender record in a circular four game, winning 20-goal against the NSW Swifts. What is the key to her endurance, then? How is she still able to match it with the country’s best in her 19th year? We’ll go over that further.

However for the lady of the moment, the Swifts were significantly better in their next meeting, causing a 63-57 dissection of the crowd as yet another team trying to put together a late-night challenge for finals.

To complete the trip, the Adelaide Thunderbirds were able to carry off a surging Melbourne Mavericks, 55-51, in what was the tightest activity of the round. In doing so, they reclaim the top spot the Vixens lost in square six and are now in the lead race for the small league.

Don’t fret if you missed it because we’ll update you with our Super Netball round-up.

Record-breaking Romelda

Aiken-George thanked those who had shaped her record-breaking job without a doubt.

The 37-year-old perhaps didn’t anticipate dressing up for her 255th national basketball league game when she signed with her first Asian team as a teenager in 2008. Or even when, after being a member of that same group for 14 years, she became pregnant in 2021.

But the initial trade, who paved the way for additional great People, has now played for four venues.

In 2007, Vicki Wilson, the Firebirds ‘ then-head coach, watched the Diamond take on Jamaica in a two-game set in the lead up to the World Cup.

The 196cm goalie was somewhat new to the global scene and was anticipated to face off against Liz Ellis, the opposition captain.

Wilson told ABC Sport,” She came on and took this remarkable game in the air.”

” Finally she took another beautiful great pass and you could observe Liz wondering,’ What the hell only happened?’

I believe she got three or four that method. She had wonderful horizontal skills, but I immediately thought,” Oh, hello.”

” You may see she had potential”.

Later that month, Aiken-George would spike Jamaica’s strike at the big event in Auckland, clinching metal alongside her sister Nicole only two days before she turned 19.

Marva Bernard was thrilled that her bright young star was given the opportunity to play for Netball Jamaica’s president at the World Cup, and Wilson had a conversation with him.

After leaving her family and moving abroad to begin a new life, Aiken-George felt homesick and the transition was difficult. She has openly spoken about the culture shock she experienced in her first season and how she mostly stuck to what she knew at dinner time — chicken, corn and rice.

Wilson fondly recalls one-on-one game analysis sessions, where the reserved shooter would order chocolate thickshakes and fried eggs.

Aiken-George’s sacrifice and successful signing, however, ultimately established a relationship between Jamaican talent and the Australian league. Now there are six other Sunshine Girls signed across the Super Netball league.

For Jamaica to succeed,” Marva knew that the girls needed to be in a daily training environment,” Wilson said.

” I don’t believe she would have considered the impact Romelda could have had on the sport in this country and how it has impacted their national team,” she said in her wildest dreams.

Aiken-George won three premierships with the Firebirds ( 2011, 2015 and 2016 ). Off the court, she became a citizen, met and married Daniel, and gave birth to Gianna. She only missed the 2022 season all that time because of a pregnancy illness.

But before she had even given birth, the club decided not to re-sign her for 2023, and it changed the course of her career. Aiken-George would have most likely been a one-club player had she not been removed from the roster. She has relocated three times in four years between states.

The Swifts gave up her passion for the game by appointing her as a training partner to play for Sam Wallace-Joseph, an injured Trinidad and Tobago shooter. That year they finished runners-up by one goal. Aiken-George moved to Adelaide, won a premiership with the Thunderbirds, and was named grand final MVP when Wallace-Joseph returned in 2024.

Her body, however, appeared to have taken a beating at the end of 2025. All those years playing at the top had taken their toll. Ipswich Girls ‘ Grammar School’s coaching position was taken over by Aiken-George after his retirement. Then she received a call from the fever. Coaching would have to wait.

Aiken-George, it turns out, still has what it takes despite the tired and sore body. She has the most goals overall in the league ( 441 ). The holding shooter has also been given a licence by her new coach, Dan Ryan, to target super shots ( 3 ).

This is one example of the way Aiken-George has continued to reinvent herself. Despite having to move her husband and home in Brisbane with a toddler in tow with each opportunity, each new setting under different guidance has taught her new skills and a different way of thinking. Each terrifying step has allowed for even greater growth.

” Every game I feel like I gain more superpowers”, Aiken-George said.

” I’m engaging in things that I don’t normally would do.”

” I still enjoy competing… I want to be better than who I was at the previous game. It’s just this adrenaline, this fire.”

So, what has Vicki Wilson made of it all, watching from afar, after signing Aiken-George on that rookie contract so long ago?

Wilson claimed that” she is no longer the shy, reserved teenager she was when she arrived.”

She is very confident and is well-versed in both what she wants and what she contributes to the team.

” It’s been remarkable. She is making the most of it because the end is near and she is aware of it.

When asked if she would continue with the Fever next season, Aiken-George laughed. She knows Folwer-Nembhard, aka”, the big dog “is coming back, and has hinted at an interest in coaching.

If elite level coaching is Wilson’s next step, she claims her knowledge will be priceless.

She said,” Coaching is about developing relationships with your players, and she has an understanding of what it’s like to be the new kid on the block.

” In an environment where you don’t know anyone, she has the skills to be really welcoming and a great deal of netball knowledge.”