How Liz Watson rose from a shaky start to become ‘people’s captain’ of the Australian Diamonds

She is aware that this story on her appointment as the 25th Diamonds captain has involved interviews with her favourite leader, closest teammate and long-time club coach. So when a recollection from an early Melbourne Vixens training session is flagged as a particular source of mirth, the 27-year-old can instantly recall which one.

It was late in 2012, at the start of Simone McKinnis’ tenure as Melbourne Vixens coach, when a group of emerging midcourters was invited along for an audition of sorts. Among them was a sturdy Victorian Netball League kid who had been recommended by her former school coach and Vixens assistant Eloise Southby.

The problem: young Elizabeth Watson couldn’t keep her feet.

“She was just falling over, left, right and centre, and I remember saying to Ella, who was there, ‘Eloise! What the heck?’’’ McKinnis recalls, laughing.

Nor has Watson forgotten that shaky introduction.

“That was my first unofficial session with the Vixens and I think I fell over about five or six times. Look, not much has changed; I still keep falling over! But it wasn’t a great start.”

What we have learned over Watson’s 102 Super Netball appearances and 48 Tests since 2014 is that no current Australian player more consistently stands up. One of Watson’s great qualities beyond cool unflappability, supreme competitiveness and – at least before this season, cancelled by navicular surgery – durability, is her unmatched dependability.

When asked what Watson brings as a leader that the Diamonds most need, McKinnis replies: “You know what? One of the big things is that she’s gonna get the job done as a player out there on court. You can rely on her and that’s No.1. She’s gonna be a winner out there for you on court. So she has the respect and the confidence of everybody around her, on-court and off-court.’‘

Adds long-time teammate and close friend Kate Moloney: “She’s really strong, she’s really powerful, she has a lot of confidence in her own performance and she goes out and delivers, which I think is the most important thing. She’s a real natural netballer; she goes out there on court and people want to follow her.

“On and off the court, she just has this absolute desire to win and that’s super-important in Australian netball. We want to get the medals back into our cupboard, which is something we don’t have, and I think Lizzie’s the right man for the job. I’m just absolutely excited for her and sure she will absolutely flourish in the role.’’

If there has been a more obvious – or necessary – appointment in this Australian sporting year than Watson’s, nominations are open. A team that has been the dominant force in world netball has a bare trophy cabinet for the first time this century. Replacing the long-serving Lisa Alexander is Stacey Marinkovich, without a premiership pennant as an elite coach. Former captain Caitlin Bassett, who remains in the extended Diamonds squad following knee surgery, could not earn a Super Netball contract after returning from a stint in New Zealand.

When Watson and her new deputy, Queenslander Steph Wood, first addressed the group that – along with the interview panel comprising Marinkovich, Netball Australia CEO Kelly Ryan and influential former captain Liz Ellis – had voted them in to the leadership positions, they spoke not just of their pride and gratitude, but of being driven by the desire to help regain the sport’s major trophies. This is a team still officially ranked No.1 but bearing the scars of consecutive one-goal losses at the pinnacle events. One for whom silver will never be good enough.

“I feel like Lizzy’s the people’s captain, for the fans, for the players, for Netball Australia as a whole, for everybody; that’s 100 per cent the player and person she is,’’ says former Vixens captain and Diamonds deputy Bianca Chatfield, noting similarities with the GOAT, Sharelle McMahon.

“She doesn’t need to say much but her actions do all the talking when she’s out on court. You knew that with Sharelle instantly. She didn’t say much but she would go out there and show you how to play at your absolute best; and her best was way better than any of ours, but she just knew she gave everything, so you just knew you had no choice when you were out on court than to just replicate what she was doing down the other end.

“So I feel like that’s going to be Lizzy’s biggest strength, is actually the way she acts and behaves around the team, whether they’re on or off the court. She is going to install so much belief in everybody else. It doesn’t even really matter what she says. It’s what she does.’’

Watson, indeed, has pledged to continue letting her performances drive the standard, and to listen more than she speaks; aware that she will not have all the answers but determined that, whatever the words, they will always come from a good place.

“Not talking the talk if you can’t actually do it. I’ve always lived by that,’’ she says. “I just like to get stuff done and stay level-headed as much as I can and I think it probably shows out on court; my facial expression doesn’t really change too much. So it’s probably being cool, calm and consistent and I love that in a leader: when they just seem like they know what’s going on, even if they don’t, and they kind of give off that vibe and, ‘Let’s do it together’.’’

‘Little tough mongrel’ to Australian captain

Watson grew up in Melbourne’s northern suburbs with two sporty brothers, including Matthew, Carlton’s 23-game first round pick in the 2010 AFL draft. An uncle, Steve Alessio, was a 184-gamer for Essendon and member of the 2000 premiership side, and happily takes some credit for developing what Watson calls her “little tough mongrel side”. Certainly, the backyard family gatherings were a fiercely competitive place, populated by the robust and resilient. You want the ball? You come and get it.

Mum Manuela was a social player – a defender – at nearby Royal Park, where her kids were often on the sidelines. For Lizzy, who took up the game at the age of 12 and still nominates Manuela as her childhood netball hero, it has always been more about playing. She rose steadily through the Netball Victoria junior pathway from the state primary school team up to Australian 21/under level.

Her big break came during the 2014 pre-season, promoted from Vixens training partner when centre Elissa Kent announced her pregnancy just weeks before round one. McKinnis will never forget the look on the rookie’s face when her name was called out in the starting seven, to oppose Silver Ferns great Laura Langman. Chatfield supplied the hug and words of support and encouragement in the tunnel. Mutual admiration and a strong friendship were fermenting, even then.

“Usually when young players come in, they’ve either got this super-confidence about them and they already know that they’re going to be great, or they’re unassuming and quiet but when they step out onto the court, you can see already the potential they’ve got and they don’t even realise it. And Lizzy was definitely in that second category,” Chatfield says.

Perhaps most impressive to the then-captain was the rookie’s lack of ego and willingness to soak up information and advice like a sponge. By the middle of her debut season, Watson was a bolter in the Diamonds squad, missing Commonwealth Games selection but on the selectors’ radar. When a Vixens premiership came a few months later, how easy everything seemed. But the six years it took before the second provided plenty of time to come to the realisation that yep, actually, winning premierships is bloody hard.

“She just had that great mix of being a really hard competitor when she was out there on court, but when she was off the court and in a training environment, wanted to learn, wanted to fit into the team, never had an ego about her,’’ Chatfield says.

“Not that I thought straight away, ‘Oh, you’re going to be amazing, you’re going to be the next Australian captain’, but I just knew she’d fit into that Phoenix/Vixens culture that I had grown up in. You were instantly like, ‘She’s gonna be here for a long time and I hope she’s here for a long time’.”

Work ethic? Ticked that box, too, and she would soon be training so hard with Moloney that McKinnis would sometimes have to order the fanatical pair to go home and rest. Watson’s Diamonds debut came in England in 2016 and she has barely missed an international minute that’s mattered since.

Here was a robust wing attack more like the dynamic Kim Green than greyhounds such as Kim Ravaillion. A “Mack truck” is how Vixens assistant Di Honey has described her. While Watson has laughed before that she is unsure whether to take that as a compliment, the suspicion is that she does. And should.

“She’s super-quick but Lizzie showed you didn’t have to have that really lean figure; you could be strong and use that to your advantage,’’ Chatfield says.

“Even when she was so young, she could stand on the edge of that circle and the older, bully wing defenders would try and knock her off-side but she could withstand all of that. It was the finer parts of the game that she really dominated, the timing, the feeding and being able to hold your own against all the bully defenders out there. Me included!”

Leading with ‘composure and unflappability’

Dissenters to the captaincy appointment, fortunately, are as scarce as credible Covid deniers. Alexander, who presided over the Bassett era and the Geitz years before that but failed to win a contract renewal in 2020, describes it as a “fabulous” choice. “If I was there, I would have hoped she would have been the next person anyway, so I’m delighted.” Qualities? “Calmness, and really being able to put the performances out there while still leading the team from the front.”

Increasingly important, too, is the off-court element, especially as competition grows from flourishing domestic women’s leagues. There’s media demands, sponsor obligations etc. Becoming the face of the game for which she famously sold programs at the 2013 Test match in Melbourne in exchange for a free ticket, only to pull on her own gold dress less than 18 months later en route to becoming the world’s best wing attack.

“It’s an exciting part of the role and something I’m looking forward to, and I know that the title of being captain of the Diamonds isn’t just the netball team. It’s Netball Australia the brand, it’s everything,” Watson says.

“It’s the vision that Netball Australia has for netball in this country, so I know that there’s a lot else that comes with it… there’s a lot of people that look up to the Diamonds and, I guess, to their new captain.”

McKinnis, whom Watson suspects was the most thrilled of all by her appointment, backs her 2019 co-captain unconditionally.

“The composure and unflappability that Lizzie shows on court, it’s the same off-court and she embraces those opportunities as well. She’s done that role with us with Vixens and she’ll do that role very well for the Diamonds as well. She’s smart and she’s a thinker, she’s self-aware and she’s aware of everything around her.

“She’s always had the leadership qualities about her, but she’s always been happy to sit in the background somewhat. But she’s just really matured and she’s getting much better at speaking up. She’s honest and she’s better at contributing her feelings and thoughts, but also just really generous with players around her.”

Chatfield – who has seen both sides of the media, as a player/captain, contestant on The Block and now sports show host – has also noticed a subtle change in Watson over the past year or two. She has seen a more involved and open leader, citing a Vixens loss in the Queensland hub in 2019, in which Watson spoke with refreshing candour in the post-match TV interview.

“Someone had made a mistake. But she actually said that in the interview after the game rather than just saying, ‘Oh, we’ll try again next week, blah, blah, blah’. And I remember saying to her, ‘That was awesome, that you actually were honest about what happened rather than trying to pretend everything’s fine’. I think she’s really started to just find her own voice and her own way of saying things, and she’s got a really cheeky, funny sense of humour, and she’ll get more confident in being able to show that, too, as she does more and more of it.”

Meanwhile, Watson is working through her primary teaching degree and towards a competitive comeback during the January Quad Series in England, determined to regain Commonwealth Games gold medal status from England in Birmingham next year, the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023, and the trans-Tasman Constellation Cup currently in Kiwi hands.

Australia also has a safe pair, however, and many of those close to Watson have remarked on how emotional she was to earn this latest honour. Diamond No.168 admits how much it means to be chosen by her teammates to fill the top job in the most popular female participant sport in the land. This reporter has seen her evolve from the kid in the no-name, ill-fitting spare dress in a 2014 pre-season game to the player and person she has become.

“This is going to sound so weird, but I feel like that [practice match] was not that long ago and not much has changed in my mind; but in hindsight, I know that a lot’s gone on,’’ she says.

“I’ve got great people around me, same as back then. And I still love playing, game day’s still my favourite, right from back then to now.”

Which, nine years after that inauspicious beginning, is the start of what should be an extended reign as Diamonds captain. One who will not just keep her feet but plant them firmly, then lead in a way and direction that others will surely follow.