Talented Melbourne netball star Jo Weston impressive on the court and off
Intelligence and extraordinary ability sets netballer Jo Weston apart from the pack and it could be the difference in winning or losing during Australia’s quest for World Cup glory this month.
Best of Melbourne
Don't miss out on the headlines from Best of Melbourne. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Netballer Jo Weston is a ball of contradictions: equal parts gangly and graceful, a “scatterbrain” with a razor-sharp intellect and a business degree, and a ferociously competitive athlete who understands there’s more to life than sport.
In a world of the vacuous Insta-famous, 25-year-old Weston — who plays for the Melbourne Vixens in the Super Netball league and is currently in the UK preparing to represent Australia at her first World Cup — is a perfectly imperfect role model, on and off the court.
From Friday until July 21, Weston looks likely to play a starring role in hopefully netball’s greatest redemption story.
Last April, England broke the decades-long antipodean stranglehold on world netball by beating Australia, the reigning world champions, in the Commonwealth Games final on the Gold Coast, crushing Australian hearts. The World Cup in Liverpool offers a tantalising chance for revenge and Weston will be a linchpin in defence.
Weston was born in Corowa, just inside New South Wales, and her family has a nut farm at Eurobin, in Victoria’s northeast.
She moved to Melbourne in her youth, went to Sacré Coeur girls school in Glen Iris and still lives in Melbourne’s leafy east.
Rising through the Victorian netball ranks as a lankly but driven youngster, Weston was identified as a top talent in her teens and after another promising player was injured, she spent a stint at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra just days after attending schoolies celebrations in Byron Bay.
She made a strong impression on one of Australia’s most highly regarded netball coaches, Julie Fitzgerald, who has been at the top level for 20 years.
Fitzgerald, who now coaches the Giants in the Super Netball league, was head coach at the AIS at the time.
From there, Weston — who can play all three defensive positions and grew up idolising one of the country’s best defenders in Julie Corletto — was on the shiny path to being a Diamond: the moniker given to the national netball team.
Weston got an AIS scholarship, and, as was convention then, left the ACT with a playing contract. It was with the Vixens, who at the time played in the trans-Tasman ANZ Championship, the precursor to the current Super Netball.
She has been with the Vixens since 2014 — the last year the side won a premiership — and after being named the club’s best rookie in 2015, broke into the Diamonds squad just months later.
She debuted in the green and gold in a Constellation Cup Test match against New Zealand in Melbourne and has been a mainstay of the side ever since.
The 188cm defender, known for her adaptability, uncompromising style and ability to take seemingly impossible intercepts thanks to her “go-go Gadget arms”, now has 27 Test caps to her name.
Astonishingly, she goes into one of the most-hyped netball World Cups in history as one of the team’s most experienced defenders. That’s thanks to a series of retirements, including that of Laura Geitz and Sharni Layton after last year’s Commonwealth Games.
It’s a loss the side, coached by Lisa Alexander, is undoubtedly hell-bent on avenging on English soil.
Along the way in her elite sporting career, Weston somehow managed to earn a Bachelor of Commerce and, until recently, worked part-time in a business advisory role for Deloitte Australia in Melbourne.
It’s something she sees as invaluable exposure to the real world, away from high-performance sport and the pressure that comes with it.
Her former coach Fitzgerald knew way back when that Weston’s name would one day be up in lights and that she was a different type of player.
Fitzgerald’s first impression?
“In some ways, a bit of a scatterbrain, to be honest,” she recalls, before quickly qualifying, “but in other ways, she’s just so mature.”
Weston herself happily admits to being a pretty “full-on” type and it was a key reason she danced as a kid, even before she pulled on a netball bib.
“I danced a lot when I was younger, which is always quite comical now when I bring it up. I did ballet, jazz, tap: the whole she-bang from when I was about five,” Weston says.
“I had a lot, a lot of energy. I was a very excitable child, I think. My mum always used to say, ‘There’s no show without Jo.’
“I was definitely one of those kids that was like ‘Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!’. So I think dancing was a good outlet for it. Maybe it made me a little bit more co-ordinated, given my limb length.”
READ MORE:
JENNIFER KEYTE’S HEADLINE-MAKING MOVE
MELB DOCTORS’ SURGERIES WITH A DIFFERENCE
WAYS WOMEN CAN GET FINANCIALLY AHEAD
Fitzgerald, who has coached 300 elite games, knew Weston — graceful or otherwise — was special.
“Sometimes you get a player that as soon as you see them, you know they’re going to be a star and Jo was one of them,” Fitzgerald says.
“I just loved having her at the AIS and right now, there’s not too many defenders in the world who are better than Jo Weston. Here at the Giants, we have a video of her taking a ball and even when you watch it back, you think ‘How did she get there?’
“It’s a lot to do with her intelligence. To be a circle defender, I think you have to be intelligent and with her intellect, Jo was always going to be that.”
Weston is also smart enough to listen and adapt, Fitzgerald says.
“She would work and work at what you wanted her to do and she would try everything that you told her. She does have that drive to be the best that she can be in everything. That certainly plays out well for netball and also for her professional life. Some people are just born more driven than others and Jo is one of the most driven people I know.”
Weston’s sense of loyalty is another admirable quality. At the end of her time at the AIS, the rising star could have had her pick of clubs, Fitzgerald explains.
“I remember Jo walking into my office and I said: ‘Well Jo, what do you want to do?’ and she replied; ‘All I’ve ever wanted to do was be a Vixen’ and I love that; that loyalty. I know she just loves the Vixens.”
Weston can be a hard one to read, though, Fitzgerald says. “I think sometimes she appears to be over confident, but she certainly isn’t.”
It’s possible Weston’s intensity for the contest can be misread as arrogance. She plays like she means it.
While her academic and professional background mean she’s lived “outside the bubble” and understands sport isn’t the be-all and end-all, being successful matters to Weston … a lot.
“In my life, I don’t want to be like; ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, it’s just sport,’ because then I’m not going to be giving it my all. It does matter to me,” Weston says.
“Losing last year at the Commonwealth Games was very difficult. We were a relatively young team, and yes, there was an expectation on us to win, as there always is with the Australian Diamonds because we’ve been so successful over time, but I don’t feel like it weighed too heavy on any of us.
“It was still a phenomenal tournament, an incredible two weeks. It was surreal, if I’m honest. The entire time, I couldn’t believe it and maybe that was a bad way to think about it. It was a job to be done.
“I learned a whole raft of things from that, about performing when it really matters.”
Despite lots of talk of revenge, excitement is Weston’s key emotion heading into the World Cup, which kicks off on Friday for the Diamonds when they take on lowly ranked Northern Ireland.
“It’s going to be great,” Weston says. “I get a little bit nervous about the opposition, but then on the flip side, I like to think that they might be nervous about me. It must be one and the same, right?”
Her Super Netball coach, Vixens boss Simone McKinnis — who played 63 Tests for Australia between 1986 and 1998 and is rated by many as the greatest ever Diamonds wing defence — says it’s that innate competitiveness that sets Weston apart.
“One of Jo’s absolute strengths is her competitiveness. She’s just so competitive, probably more so than any other player I’ve coached. I don’t think even I’m as competitive,” the famously fierce McKinnis says.
“She will fight for everything, just won’t give up. She has this really strong drive for the contest and she’s never satisfied. She fights every step of the way. Even at training, the girls will see the bibs being put on and they know. They always have a laugh and say, ‘Oh look out! Jo’s on so-and-so’.
“She’s also adaptable and I think that’s something she’s developed over the years. She’s one that analyses and has a look at players. She thinks about what might work and what she can try. And that’s why she continues to improve,” McKinnis says.
“It’s been really great to see her growth, because sometimes with that competitiveness, yes, you can cross the line a little bit. You can get so competitive that you sort of lose your concentration and what you’re actually doing. But that’s just really grown, that ability to control the emotion in the contest and get on to the next thing.”
And when it comes to opponents, the fiercer the better.
“The tougher the opponent, the more excited she is about it,” McKinnis says.
“She has that work rate and ability to keep going and going, regardless of who the opponent is. It’s a tough slog playing a game against Jo. I wouldn’t want to do it. You’ll feel every minute of it.”
Weston can equally apply herself away from netball.
“She has high aspirations and ambitions in her career. She’s full-on with everything she does. The best way to describe her is that she isn’t just a netballer,” McKinnis says.
Weston is proving that through her involvement with the Australian Netball Players’ Association, which seeks to promote the interests of the country’s elite netballers. Part of that commitment is sitting on the newly formed Super Netball competition commission, the governing body of the world’s premier netball league.
“These roles help me fill the void since stepping back from my work with Deloitte,” Weston says.
“It gives me the avenue to utilise the skills I bring outside of my physical attributes — to be a leader in that space. It’s something I really value.”
he fans of netball value Weston, too. She occasionally gets recognised on the street or, as happened recently, at a gig at Fitzroy music venue The Night Cat.
“I was up the front, watching a mate’s band, and three girls turned around and were like ‘Ah, Jo! High five!’. I don’t really blend into a crowd very well,” she laughs.
As Weston has ascended the ranks, she’s seen the popularity and visibility of netball at the elite level mushroom.
“We’ve got a really strong fan base, but it does constantly surprise me when people know who I am,” she says.
A case in point: Weston was surprised to learn she’d been booked for an appearance at a 13th birthday party recently.
“I was a bit nervous, but when I got there, the birthday girl and the guests were just so happy to see me. I couldn’t believe that I’d made this girl’s birthday. Like, I was the present.
“That’s such a flattering thing; that you are the present for somebody’s birthday.”
Netball fans across Australia will be hoping Weston can deliver another gift come the last day of the World Cup on July 21: sweet, sparkling victory.
NETBALL WORLD CUP LIVERPOOL, JULY 12-21
How to plan a post-lockdown Great Ocean Road getaway
The regional border has lifted, which means we can plan a trip to the Great Ocean Road. Here’s where to eat, stay and play.
‘I wouldn’t even s*** that’: What you missed on Wentworth
Wentworth does WikiLeaks in the third episode of the new season, as the Foxtel drama welcomes a new face. And there’s drama for Reb and Lou. Warning: Spoilers.