Australian Diamonds

Team Details

Team Bio

As well as being one of just four nations to compete in every edition of the Netball World Cup held to date – along with New Zealand, England and Jamaica – at NWC 2015 Australia will become the second nation to host three Netball World Cups, after New Zealand.

The Diamonds have been crowned World Champions a record 10 times; at the inaugural event known as the World Netball Tournament hosted in Eastbourne, England, in 1963, in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1971, in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1975, and were also part of the historic three-way tie for the World Title in 1979, which they shared with New Zealand and Trinidad & Tobago at the event held in Port of Spain.

Australia were once again crowned World Champions when Singapore hosted the sport’s pinnacle event for the first time in 1983.  They also went on to win netball’s ultimate prize the last time the World Cup was held in Sydney – 24 years ago in 1991 – in 1995 in Birmingham, England, 1999 in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2007 in Auckland, and most recently in Singapore in 2011.

On the three occasions that the Diamonds have not walked away winner from a Netball World Cup, they have never finished lower than second.  When Australia first hosted the event in Perth in 1967 New Zealand, were crowned World Champions, at the event hosted in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1987 Australia once again finished second to New Zealand, and the same result was repeated when Jamaica hosted the tournament in Kingston in 2003.

Since finals were introduced to the Netball World Cup in 1991, Australia have contested all six, winning five.  Five of these six finals were played against New Zealand, of which the winning margin in all of them was decided by five goals or less.

In total Australia have played in 116 Netball World Cup matches across their 13 tournament appearances.  Of these they have won 109, lost five and drawn two, giving them a World Cup winning percentage of 94%.

Seven members of the Diamonds’ World Title-winning team from Singapore four years ago will be returning to the World Stage at NWC 2015, with Julie Corletto and Natalie Medhurst both contesting their third World Cup and aiming for their third-straight World Title.

The Diamonds’ coaching staff also have considerable World Cup experience under their belt, with assistant coach, Michelle den Dekker, captaining the Australian sides that won the title in both 1991 (the last time the event was held in Sydney) and 1995, and specialist coach, Margaret Caldow, representing Australia at three World Cups (in 1963, 1975 and 1979) captaining the side in both 1975 and 1979.

*Rankings based on the International Netball Federation’s (INF) current World Rankings as of June 4, 2015. Please note that the Netball World Cup Pool allocations are based on the INF World Rankings of 1 July 2014.