Super Netball player moves: Sunshine Coast Lighting settle on final ten while questions remain for Queensland Firebirds

Sunshine Coast‘s impressive off-season recruitment drive is complete with a Firebirds player set to join, writes LINDA PEARCE.

Former Firebird Leesa Mi Mi has signed with the Lightning. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Sunshine Coast Lightning have finalised the 10 who will sign on Super Netball’s dotted line when the contracting window officially opens, with emerging midcourter Leesa Mi Mi set to defect from the Queensland Firebirds to complete the roster.

Mi Mi, 22, will soon join senior Diamonds’ duo Liz Watson (Melbourne Vixens) and Courtney Bruce (West Coast Fever) as new arrivals at Sippy Downs, where shooter Reilley Batcheldor and defender Tara Hinchliffe are preparing to return from their second knee reconstructions after both missed all of 2023.

Leesa Mi Mi finished the 2023 season playing with the Queensland Firebirds after starting as a training partner. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Versatile training partner Ava Black, who impressed with her combination of height and speed in eight games as a temporary midcourt replacement, and incumbent defender Ash Ervin will fill the final two contracted spots, alongside foundation goalers Steph Wood and Cara Koenen plus Mahalia Cassidy, who joined from the rival Firebirds in 2021.

The additions leave no room for dual premiership midcourter Laura Scherian, the other player remaining from that inaugural 2017 group, Annie Miller, who played 12 games in her second season after moving from the Giants, or goal keeper Kadie-Ann Dehaney, lured from the Vixens by former coach Kylee Byrne in 2022.

The 192cm Dehaney will have no difficulty finding a new home, given the premium on defensive talls, while the theoretical possibilities for Miller potentially include a return to Giants’ orange or to complete the midcourt quartet at the new SEN-owned Melbourne Mavericks, whose playing colours were officially revealed on Wednesday: sky blue, pacific cyan and sapphire.

The personnel blend gives Belinda Reynolds’ improving Lightning team — and one whose revamped line-up should challenge for a grand final return, up from fifth last season — a mix of the well paid and those on the base-level deals needed to squeeze under what will be a tight salary cap.

Mi Mi will help in that regard. The younger and shorter — at 170cm — sister of another former Firebird, Jemma, Leesa started as a training partner for the Brisbane-based team this year before playing the last five games in place of the injured Macy Gardner.

The WA/C was thought to be in competition with the more defensively-slanted Hulita Veve for the final midcourt position in Brisbane alongside leaders Kim Ravaillion and Lara Dunkley, as well as the returning Gardner.

Reilley Batcheldor and teammate Tara Hinchcliffe are on track to return to the Lightning line-up after their second knee reconstructions. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

But the Firebirds’ bigger question marks remain in both goal circles.

Offensively, a replacement is needed for shooter Mia Stower, who is headed west to the Fever after being told she would not win a new deal, while Gretel Bueta is considered a long shot to return from the birth of her second child, and the status of Bueta’s 2023 replacement Emily Moore is unknown.

As are the intentions of Tippah Dwan, the former Firebird, now Thunderbirds premiership player who is known to be happy in Adelaide and popular within the T’birds’ playing group, but opinion is still divided on whether she will stay or return home to Brisbane, where her partner Josh Dunkley plays for the AFL’s Lions.

Recently-capped Diamond Ruby Bakewell-Doran will lead the Firebirds‘ defence, but at least one more tall stopper is required for a team that leaked a league-high 970 goals while avoiding the wooden spoon by barely one per cent in 2023.

Originally published as Super Netball player moves: Sunshine Coast Lighting settle on final ten while questions remain for Queensland Firebirds