Full Diamonds squad: West Coast Fever star Alice Teague-Neeld’s stellar year rewarded
From training partner last year, to leading the West Coast Fever to a minor premiership and now a potential Diamonds debut, 29 year old Alice Teague-Neeld is finally seeing reward for her work. Extended Diamonds squad here.
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Alice Teague-Neeld’s stellar Super Netball season has been rewarded with a spot in an 18-woman Diamonds squad, with the midcourter on the cusp of making her international debut at 29.
Teague-Neeld is one of a deep group of seven midcourters in Stacey Marinkovich’s squad but her performances in piloting the Fever to their maiden minor premiership could not be overlooked and she was elevated from the training partner position she held last season to a full squad member.
While Teague-Neeld is the only new name in the full squad, Sunshine Coast Lightning defender Ash Ervin and Melbourne Vixens midcourter Hannah Mundy could also debut after making the squad for the first time last year.
Marinkovich and selectors Anne Sargeant and Michelle Wilkins have also looked to the future, including next year’s Commonwealth Games and a home World Cup in 2027, by naming Teigan O’Shannassy, Amy Sligar and Lucy Austin alongside six-Test goaler Donnell Wallam as invited training partners, while the Giants’ outstanding young defender Erin O’Brien will step into upcoming training camps as a temporary replacement due to O’Shannassy’s back injury.
The squad, which is for 2025-26, also features five goalers, including swing playmaker Georgie Horjus, and six defenders from which 15-player squads will be named for a three-Test domestic series against South Africa and a home-and-away four-match Constellation Cup series against New Zealand in October.
“I’m really excited by the blend of our youth and experience,” Marinkovich said of a group that includes 10 World Cup champions, nine Commonwealth Games gold medallists and seven athletes under 25.
“I think it’s going to be an extremely competitive squad and my job hasn’t gotten any easier.
“Whilst we’ve just named the squad of 18 and our invitees, I’ve now got to go through that process of identifying a 15 for the South Africa and Con Cup series … and it’s going to be really competitive at our performance camp.”
Marinkovich, who lured former Collingwood Magpie Teague-Neeld across the country to the Fever when she was head coach at West Coast ahead of the 2019 season, said she had earnt her place in the squad.
“Alice is a great story and I think what incredible growth to see her journey,” she said of a player who would become one of the oldest players in the professional era to make her Diamonds debut if she earnt a cap in October.
While Vicki Hasting became the oldest Diamonds debutant when she ran out against New Zealand at 32 in 1981, Laura Scherian, who retired last year after winning a title with the Adelaide Thunderbirds, was the oldest in the professional era, making her debut against New Zealand in 2019, at 31.
Teague-Neeld would join a group of three 29-year-olds, led by Swifts midcourter Verity Simmons, to make their debuts just before 30.
“She’s had a phenomenal journey for somebody that when, I guess, was coming to Fever, was deciding what her career path was looking like,” Marinkovich said.
“She did the hard work. She’s had to build a strength of her own belief and we’ve always known that she’s had the potential - obviously I was very interested in what I’d seen as a junior.
“When she first went over to Fever, to now playing in the finals consistently, she’s now playing at an extremely high level and she’s really taken the opportunities when she’s come into the Diamonds environment.”
And Marinkovich was thrilled to be able to make the congratulatory phone call to her former charge on Monday, informing her of her selection.
“It was an amazing call. Obviously she was elated, a little bit surprised, but you know the thing is, she has such humility,” said Marinkovich, who made it clear straight away Teague-Neeld was not just an invitee this season.
“It would never be an expectation of hers but I’m sure she really enjoyed the news.
“You could tell there was a smile on the other end of the phone.”
CONTRACT TALKS START
The silly season has started early for the bottom four Super Netball teams who will start conversations with their off-contract players as early as this week. Teams can recontract their own players at any time during the year - such as the Melbourne Mavericks did with Kim Brown (January) and captain Amy Parmenter at the start of this month - but have to wait until after the grand final to approach players from any other clubs. With all four needing to improve their lists, there are going to be some brutal conversations and disappointed players. But in the best league in the world, with only 10 full-time contracts available, it’s a cut-throat business.
That is being felt at every club but nowhere more so than the Firebirds, who finished with the wooden spoon and missed the finals for the eighth time in nine seasons of Super Netball.
Changes need to be made. But coach Kiri Wills said the focus had to be on the final game of the year - one that went to extra-time against the second-placed Swifts - before any thought of the future.
“We’ve been trying to where we can not have too many conversations before we finish out the season,” Wills said. “We’ve got to do a job here and now, so we haven’t pushed those conversations but equally there’s people contacting us.
“So there’s probably going to be some full-on discussions in the next couple of weeks about where that sits with everybody.”
ROSES STAR CAGEY ON FUTURE
Mavericks goaler Eleanor Cardwell is among a slew of athletes now off contract and was making things no clearer when she appeared on SEN’s Centre Court program with Bianca Chatfield this week.
There are plenty of whispers around that Cardwell may not return to the Mavs, or Australia next season and the Roses goaler has made no secret of the fact that she’s a homebody who has missed being around family and friends while playing Super Netball over the past three years.
“It’s a crazy period. Everyone has conversations, you have your agents have conversations and stuff like that, so it’s all happening at the minute,” Cardwell said.
“But who knows?”
After a dream first season in Australia where she helped the Adelaide Thunderbirds to a maiden Super Netball title, it’s been a frustrating couple of years for Cardwell, who suffered a knee injury last year, missing several games, before reinjuring herself when pushing to be fit for England’s series against the Diamonds.
Off-season surgery led to another period on the sidelines that kept her out for the entire 2025 season
It was a disappointing year for the intensely competitive goaler and with players only able to sign 12-month deals at the moment ahead of the next Collective Player Agreement for 2027 and beyond, it would surprise if clubs - the Mavs in particular - were not begging Cardwell to spend at least one more year down under.
FIERY REUNION
They’re two of the best shooters to have ever graced the netball court and Australia’s Gretel Bueta and New Zealand’s Maria Folau have united to bring their own version of the five-a-side game to the Gold Coast.
The pair has introduced Fire5 Netball, a competition which will be held on November 22-23 at the Gold Coast Sport and Leisure Centre.
The 16-team competition will feature several ex players making a comeback to play, including the woman regarded as the sport’s midcourt GOAT, Laura Langman.
There’s $20,000 in prizemoney up for grabs in games that feature seven-minute thirds, power plays and the ability for centres to shoot in one period.
It’s part of a burgeoning empire for Bueta, who also holds a Bachelor of Nutrition and with Folau recently ran cooking classes at a major Gold Coast shopping centre, develops healthy pre and post-match recipes and hosts coaching clinics as well as having links with a range of products and businesses.
While there has been speculation about a possible Super Netball or Diamonds return for the outstanding goal attack, there’s no sign of her slowing down any of her other activities any time soon, with a trip to the US to spread the netball gospel on the agenda for later this year.
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Originally published as Full Diamonds squad: West Coast Fever star Alice Teague-Neeld’s stellar year rewarded
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