Revealed: Every Super Netball club’s First Nations round dress

Take a look at all eight Super Netball club’s First Nations round dress that they will take to the court in across rounds seven and eight.

Proud Kamilaroi woman and artist Teagan Malcolm with the dress displaying the imagery she created for the Melbourne Vixens' First Nations round. Picture: Wiradjuri photographer Joshua Scott.

They’re among the most popular and visible elements of Super Netball’s First Nations round - the dresses worn by each club featuring original work designed by indigenous artists.

First Nations round is about more than just the stunning dresses donned by the players.

Clubs have incorporated artist talks, launching of Reconciliation Action Plans and visits from local elders as they attempt to walk with First Nations people toward making Australia’s favourite sport for women and girls a more inclusive space for indigenous athletes and supporters.

There will again be two First Nations rounds in the Super Netball competition - this weekend, to coincide with National Reconciliation Week and in Round 13, in conjunction with NAIDOC Week - ensuring that every club gets the chance to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and its contribution to netball, at a home match.

Each club will turn out in their bespoke uniforms in each game.

The Melbourne Mavericks will don the First Nations dress for the first time in their maiden Super Netball season, wearing a design by artist is Bayley Mifsud, known as @merindah-gunya on Instagram.

Melbourne Mavericks captain Amy Parmenter in the club's First Nations dress designed by Bayley Mifsud.

Mifsud, a Peek Whurrong woman of the Maar nation from Warrnambool now living on

Wurundjeri Country, will be interviewed on court at halftime to talk about the design which includes a centralised meeting place symbolic of the home ground of the club, with seven people surrounding it, symbolic of the players on the court.

Another artist living on Wurundjeri Country, proud Kamilaroi woman and artist Teagan Malcolm, has designed the Vixens’ dress around the theme of “foundations”, combining traditional Aboriginal storytelling practices and modern graphic design and illustration techniques.

In Sydney, Gamilaroi woman Krystal Dallinger has designed the Giants’ dress with three key pillars in mind: connection, community and culture.

Co-captain Paige Hadley in the NSW Swifts' First Nations dress designed by Wongaibon woman Tarsha Hawley. Picture: Netball NSW

Giants shooter Matisse Letherbarrow in the club's First Nations dress designed by Gamilaroi woman Krystal Dallinger. Picture: Ryan Jones/GWS GIANTS

At the NSW Swifts, proud Wongaibon woman and former Swifts Academy athlete Tarsha Hawley has designed the dress for the fourth season, with the design featuring a representation of all 105 women to have represented the club up to the start of the 2024 season.

Queensland Firebirds' First Nations Round dress with imagery designed by artist Leah Cummins.

Sunshine Coast Lightning and Queensland Firebirds will wear their First Nations dresses in both intrastate battles this season, fitting given the clubs boast the only two Aboriginal woman holding full-time Super Netball contracts.

Liz Watson in the Lightning's First Nations Round dress displaying the Toolembi Watama (Storm dance) artwork, hand painted by Kabi Kabi woman Zartisha Davis.

Fever captain Jess Anstiss in the club's First Nations design by Jilalga Murray of Jilalga Designs.

The Lightning dress features an artwork titled Toolembi Watama” (Storm dance), handpainted by local First Nations artist and proud Kabi Kabi woman, Zartisha Davis which represents

how the Sunshine Coast Lightning players look like a storm dance when they take the court.

Do you like the Thunderbirds Indigenous dress? Picture: Sarah Reed Photography/ Corporate Conversations.

The Firebirds dress, created by Mayi-Kulan and Kalkadoon woman Leah Cummins,

was revealed at the launch of Netball Queensland’s Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan and depicts the organisation’s cultural journey, highlighting the importance of reflection and the efforts of those who have paved the way to build a culturally safe environment.

It has a personal meaning for Wallam, given it features kangaroo footprints, with the kangaroo Wallam’s family totem.

West Coast Fever will don a dress featuring the work “Spirit of Fever” by Jilalga Murray of Jilalga Designs, a work she says carries an “immense amount of West Australian pride, and a

deep respect for our First Nations people and country”.

The Adelaide Thunderbirds will don a dress designed by Shane Mankitya Cook - a proud Wulli Wulli and Guwa descendant from Queensland who created the work in conjunction with SAASTA Aboriginal Netball Academy students after workshops with the Thunderbirds and understand their story.

Cook has worked with Netball South Australia to create a design that is now a permanent inclusion of uniforms for the SA Rubies, SA State Teams, the Thunderbirds Futures, umpire uniforms and the Adelaide Thunderbirds.

Originally published as Revealed: Every Super Netball club’s First Nations round dress