One of the greatest things about Super Netball is the diversity of cultures and playing styles in the athlete group, and this year the competition has featured 20 international players from a range of Commonwealth countries.
Among them, have been a record seven Jamaicans — three shooters in Romelda Aiken, Jhaniele Fowler and Shimona Nelson, and four defenders in Kadie-Ann Dehaney, Shamera Sterling, Jodi-Ann Ward and Latanya Wilson.
These players have all thrived in the Australian high-performance system and many of them have the potential to make the 2021 Team of the Year and win their individual club MVP awards.
Like Jhaniele Fowler, who has been playing Super Netball with the West Coast Fever from 2018 and is the most prolific shooter in the league.
The tall timber is leading the goal-scoring list for a fourth year in a row and has so far scored 733 goals at 96 per cent accuracy.
Adelaide Thunderbirds keeper Shamera Sterling has been another standout in her third year, and although her team have finished seventh, Sterling leads the competition in intercepts (49), defensive rebounds (25) and deflections (86).
Jodi-Ann Ward (34 intercepts, 83 deflections), Romelda Aiken (87 offensive rebounds, 531 goals) and Shimona Nelson (614 goals, 34 offensive rebounds) are some of the other Jamaicans dominating the top five list in the overall stats department.
The number of Sunshine Girls in Super Netball has steadily been growing since the league began in 2017 because of the unlimited cap on overseas imports.
But they were a rarer commodity during the nine years of the preceding Trans-Tasman Championship that ran from 2008-2016, with one star in particular paving the way for Caribbean players to make their way down under.
ANZ Championship years
Queensland Firebirds shooter Romelda Aiken was the very first Jamaican import in an Australian team and, remarkably, 14 years after signing her first contract as an inexperienced teenager, is still one of the best shooters in the competition.
She joined the Firebirds for the first year of the Trans-Tasman championship and by the end of her second season, had topped the overall goal-scoring chart.
Aiken went on to top the list three more times during this era (2011, 2015 and 2016), as well as winning three premierships, being crowned the 2011 Grand Final MVP and being the only player to reach the milestone of 5,000 goals.
Her ongoing success inspired four other Jamaicans to join the league — Althea Byfield, Carla Borrego, Kasey Evering and Jhaniele Fowler — and two of them signed with Australian teams. However, there were never more than three playing at the one time.
Part of this was down to form and injury, but it was also difficult to get a contract because there were strict rules that only allowed one import per team.
Despite being a minority, the Jamaican shooters had a huge impact on the competition.
Aiken (196cm), Borrego (193cm) and Fowler (196cm) are extremely tall, making them strong targets. Beyond that, they're strong bodied with incredible accuracy, making them difficult to defend.
Together, the three set an unprecedented level of Jamaican dominance in Australia and New Zealand for almost a decade, sharing the leading goalscorer award six times and paving the way for more Jamaicans to snare international contracts.
Super Netball years
Borrego retired in 2016 as the league split up and Netball Australia set its sights on the new Super Netball era, but Jamaica's shooting strength has continued through the work of Aiken and Fowler.
Now 32, Aiken has done a brilliant job at evolving her game as a new wave of players has come through and there have been a number of modern rule changes.
Fowler, just seven months younger, finally reached her goal of landing an Aussie contract in the second season of Super Netball when she moved across to Western Australia after four years in New Zealand with the Southern Steel.
Since then, it has been interesting to see the changing of the guard. Aiken is still a powerful presence, but Fowler has taken centre stage.
There is not a week that goes by where pundits, coaches and players aren't trying to come up with ways to nullify her presence, and she's certainly the Fever's biggest weapon, only missing a total of 22 minutes out of the 780 the side have played this season.
Speaking with the ABC, Fowler said she has been overjoyed by the growing contingent of Jamaicans in Super Netball and hopes to see midcourters join in the future.
"When the new league lifted the cap on imports, it really opened the door for more of us to come over – and in some teams – to be able to play alongside each other."
"Khadija Williams is one of our best midcourters and is really dynamic, so I'm pretty sure she would create a storm if she was able to make her way here from the UK."
Fowler will be the only Jamaican playing finals this year and despite all her achievements, is yet to win the national league trophy.
The Fever are leading the ladder with just one regular season game to come and are likely to make the grand final in back-to-back years given the strength of their team.
