Star shooter Sam Wallace-Joseph was back.

After an almost two-year lay-off recovering from a horrific knee injury, Wallace-Joseph had wound back the clock in a pre-season final that would have otherwise meant very little.

The Trinidad and Tobago international landed 16 of her 19 attempts that day in March 2024 as the Swifts claimed the Team Girls Cup and set the tone for the season.

Coach Briony Akle marvelled at the “magical” feeling in the stadium.

“Every time I’ve watched her (Wallace-Joseph) – coming from the heart, I’m just like, wow, what that kid’s been through to get back,” Akle said after the final.

But less than three months later, Wallace-Joseph would be gone, with the Swifts confirming in a statement last June that they had parted ways with their star by “mutual agreement”.

A year on, there is still no official explanation as to why the decision was made.

One thing is clear – after that moment and with five rounds of the competition still remaining, the Swifts completely fell apart, only avoiding the wooden spoon with their one-goal win against the Giants in the final match of the season.

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

Just over a week after the triumphant return of the Swifts’ 2019 and 2021 premiership goal shooter, the mood changed.

Wallace-Joseph, a devout Christian, shared a post of US President Joe Biden acknowledging March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility – an occasion that last year, fell on Easter Sunday – along with the words: “The disrespect is crazy. Don’t play with GOD”.

The condemnation from all quarters – fans, the LGBTQI+ community, her own club and Netball Australia – was immediate, the Swifts issuing a statement distancing itself from her stance and reinforcing its position as “allies” of the queer community, while Wallace-Joseph issued an apology.

A Netball Australia investigation determined the 30-year-old would not be charged under the sport’s Code of Conduct but determined she should take part in Proud2Play education with the Swifts ahead of Inclusion Round, training she later completed.

Internally though, the wheels were falling off the Swifts wagon.

The club limped to the end of the first round, with Wallace-Joseph turning out for a listless 20 minutes against the Thunderbirds in Adelaide in round 7 in what would be her final match in the red dress.

She missed the Swifts’ round 8 match against the Mavericks in Melbourne and was ruled out again the following week against the Lightning, with the club confirming she was neither injured nor ill.

On June 13, the Swifts confirmed they had parted ways by mutual agreement.

“For the past number of weeks, the club has been working with Samantha Wallace-Joseph and her management in relation to a matter which concerned her behaviour within the team environment,” the club said in a statement.

“For the wellbeing of all concerned the nature of the matter will remain confidential. However, it has been mutually agreed that parting ways is the best way forward for both Samantha and the club.

“The behavioural standard expected of everyone in the Swifts environment – across players, coaches and staff – is team first and there are no exceptions to that.”

Wallace-Joseph’s mid-season departure was unprecedented in national league netball history.

THE FALLOUT

Non-disclosure agreements between the player and the club prevent either party from discussing the issue and no sources have been willing to discuss the matter over the past year.

But it’s believed there was an egregious breach of trust which made a parting of the ways inevitable.

Severing ties could not save the Swifts’ season – after losing the last game Wallace-Joseph played to eventual premiers the Thunderbirds by a whopping 25 goals, the Swifts lost their next six, before the 72-71 final game win against the Giants.

But it had a disastrous impact on what was an incredibly close team.

The friendships were formed as far back as 2017, when Wallace-Joseph headed to Australia for the inaugural season of the new Super Netball league, joining a young Swifts team that included then vice-captain Paige Hadley and defender Maddy Turner and nine new faces including Helen Housby, Maddy Proud and Sarah Klau.

That six would form the nucleus of their 2019 and 2021 premiership sides.

Housby and Wallace-Joseph lived together for several years – joined in 2018 by future England Roses captain Natalie Haythornthwaite (Metcalf) – with the trio forging seemingly unbreakable bonds after going through life-changing moments together, including the death of Wallace-Joseph’s father Hendrickson just days after the 2019 grand final win.

Then 25, Wallace-Joseph considered not returning to Australia the following season but came back just ahead of Covid, with she and Housby preparing for the 2020 season in a makeshift gym set up on their apartment balcony in Sydney during lockdown.

The entire team was invited to Wallace-Joseph’s wedding in the Caribbean last March, with Housby and Proud acting as bridesmaids.

“It’s very hard to play netball at the highest level when a lot of your brain power during the week is going into something else - and to be honest I think the whole team, myself included, were very distracted when we were trying to play elite netball.

“That’s never a good thing and I don’t think we put out our best performances.

“But then I also do think that the way that we banded together after that adversity was really great and I think we’re in the best place that I’ve seen for a Swifts team just in terms of our camaraderie and how we’re getting along away from the court.

“But it was obviously incredibly difficult. It’s not something I’ve ever been through and it’s not something that anyone in the team, or the coaches had been through, so there wasn’t really any playbook or rule book for how to go through it or how to deal with it and we did as well as we could’ve.”

Club co-captain Maddy Proud, who is sitting out this season on maternity leave after the birth of daughter Lily last month, explained why Wallace-Joseph’s departure didn’t provide a clean break.

“Everyone went through emotions at very different times,” Proud told the No Dribble podcast.

“I was someone that straight away, was very emotional about it, and obviously had a very, very deep connection with Sam – was in her wedding – and then obviously also wanted what was best for the team.

“I remember those immediate few weeks … I was also going through issues with my knee and it was just a horrible couple of weeks – and probably the toughest I’ve ever had, definitely in terms of netball.

“And then I was like, all right, we’ve got to move on and we’ve got to get to a point where we can get our season back on track.

“But then you’d have other players that had maybe not fully comprehended what had happened until three weeks later, and so then it was just this constant bringing up of those same emotions, pretty much, until the end of the season.”

Wallace-Joseph said during her recovery from the knee surgery that cost her the 2022 and 2023 seasons: “we are not only friends on the court, we are friends off the court and for them to be in my life is a huge honour.”

“These are the girls I will always call family whether I’m living in Australia or anywhere else in the world, they will always be my family no matter what and I will always have a special place in my heart for them,” Wallace-Joseph said.

“They’ve been in the highs and lows of my life and through my journey since I started in Australia to be my backbone and I don’t think that without them (I would have got through).”

THE NOW

Wallace-Joseph was already 30 and with a repaired ACL when she left the Swifts but any idea she may have been in the netball wilderness was snuffed out when she was picked up by England’s Netball Superleague champions Loughborough Lightning just three months later to replace Queensland Firebirds-bound star Mary Cholhok for 2025.

It was a full-circle moment for the Trinidad and Tobago star, who made her major competition national league debut for the Hertfordshire Mavericks (now London Mavericks) in 2016 before heading to Australia for the introduction of Super Netball.

Her team has already sealed a semi-final spot and remains in contention for the title, while Wallace-Joseph, who declined to comment for this piece, sits in eighth place on the list of most prolific scorers this season.

The Swifts have also moved on, soaring to the top of the competition ladder after adding Silver Ferns goaler Grace Nweke – arguably the signing of the Super Netball season.

The addition of three players – Nweke, former Vixens training partner Sharni Lambden and ex Fever midcourter Verity Simmons, who came in for Proud – gave the Swifts a new flavour they have embraced successfully this season, with their first loss not until round 9.

“It’s a new year, we’ve got new recruits and the club feels fresh again,” Housby said.

“I think we’re full of longing to do well and have a good season and kind of get back to the standards that we were sitting in 2023 when we had a really great season leading up to the grand final.

“I’m just excited to get back to that and to play some good netty.”