Honouring legends of the game

By Linda Pearce

When Norma Plummer answered Netball Australia’s phone call in September, and was told Chair Liz Ellis wanted to chat, she initially thought she was in some sort of “strife”… again. 

When Nicole Cusack saw the same caller ID she wondered what she was going to be asked to help out with this time.  

Noeleen Dix was just pleased to chat, then felt honoured by what she heard. Sharon Burton cried a river of happy tears. 

Plummer has been elevated as a Legend in the Australian Netball Hall of Fame, while world champions Burton and Cusack have been inducted as Athlete Members from different eras. And administrator Dix honoured as a General Member following 50 years in the sport. 

The quartet collectively will be celebrated at the 2025 Australian Netball Awards in Melbourne on October 31.  

NORMA PLUMMER  

Norma Plummer was initially taken aback when offered her first major coaching gig for Victoria at the 1977 national championships. 

“I said, ‘oh, I thought I was still good enough to play!’,” Plummer recalled of the surprise approach from board member Mary Draper. 

 “And she said, ‘no, as playing coach. You’re doing it all the time, anyway’.’’ 

Victoria would win the next three titles, two of them with Plummer in the midcourt.  

“That was something I loved. I didn’t have to wait until quarter-time or half-time to adjust things. I was on the court dictating what to do,” she said. 

Indeed, as a player who captained Australia in four of her 16 Tests and was part of the 1975 World Championship win in Auckland, what Plummer acknowledged she lacked in leg speed was balanced by an instinctively tactical brain. 

That ability to target opponents’ strengths, both at a team and individual level, and break them down would be the foundation of a celebrated coaching career that spanned five decades. 

At club, national and international level. 

Junior and senior. 

Home and abroad. 

“It was just something that came naturally to me,’’ she said, referring to the strategy to disrupt the shooting of Silver Ferns great Maria Tutaia (now Folau) in the 2011 World Championship final in Singapore. 

Her career highlights included leading the Diamonds to the previous world title in 2007, all while overcoming injury challenges to build a 74 per cent winning record across 89 Tests between 2004 and 2011. 

Another was developing South Africa into a top four side during the first of two stints in charge.  

Less well-known was the 1996 World Youth Cup upset of favourites New Zealand in a come-from-behind decider in Toronto. 

Yet if netball was unknown in Canada there were few more recognisable figures in Australian and international netball than the colourful and outspoken Plummer, who remains a passionate ambassador for the sport. 

Hence her reaction when Ellis broke the news that the athlete inductee from 2015 had attained Legend status alongside Joyce Brown, Anne Sargeant, Margaret Pewtress, Wilma Shakespear, Chris Burton and Jill McIntosh. 

“Immediately I thought, ‘what have I done now? I’ve obviously put my foot in something’. I thought I was in strife,’’ Plummer said with a laugh. 

“I got a bit of a shock to hear that from Liz. Never thought I’d be put in that category. I guess it’s the highest accolade you can have in our sport, so I’m chuffed about it. It’s great.’’ 

ATHLETE MEMBER - SHARON BURTON 

Every time Burton tried to tell a close family member, confidentially of course, of her Hall of Fame induction, the tears would start to flow.   

“I couldn’t get the words out properly. So thrilled,’’ Diamond No.61, and dual world champion shooter from the 1970s, said. 

“I didn’t expect it now, after all this time since I’ve been retired. I was just absolutely over the moon.’’  

Burton, then Sharon Hayes, represented South Australia from 1968-1979, the last three years as captain. 

Having started out as a defender, but concerned her physical style would result in too many contact penalties and doubting she could dislodge star incumbents including her future sister-in-law Chris Burton, the switch to the attacking circle led to immediate recognition at the state selection table. 

Her international debut in 1975 then launched a 25-Test career that delivered world titles in Auckland in 1975 and in the three-way tie in Trinidad and Tobago in 1979, achievements she ranks equally. 

Despite often being afflicted by nerves during games, Burton recalled a willingness to shoot from long range. Only made more impressive given the outdoor conditions and heavy leather balls. 

“Now they work it in until they get it more or less not far from the post,’’ she said.  

“But I must admit my close-up shots were worse than my long shots.’’ 

Humbly counting herself lucky to have accomplished what she did, it was only after retiring from the game that Burton, now 74, said it really sunk in.  

“I don’t think you thought about it when you were playing. When you finish you think, ‘well, we did do that, and we did this and we won that’. Just very fortunate to be there at the right time.’’ 

ATHLETE MEMBER - NICOLE CUSACK 

In typically understated fashion, Nicole Cusack did not announce her retirement once a playing career spanning 52 Tests, World Championship and Commonwealth Games gold medals, nine national titles with New South Wales and another with Sydney Electricity, ended in 1998. 

She simply, quietly, walked away. 

“I just kind of stopped (and) didn’t turn up the next year,’’ Cusack recalled.  

“I remember getting a call later on going, ‘what are you doing?’, and going ‘well, I’m not playing.’. Had a break and didn’t come back.’’ 

Creative and selfless, acknowledged as a facilitator by Vicki Wilson and a mentor by Sharelle McMahon, Cusack prided herself on her team-first ethos of creating space, setting up play, combining immaculately with those around her. 

The accomplished shooter was determined to play her role, and comfortable to “fly under the radar’’, as she put it. 

“Even Vicki used to say and says now I used to make her look good, because I could feed and open up space,’’ Cusack said.  

“I didn’t take the limelight. Wasn’t my style.’’ 

Shooting-wise, that was a trademark high-release and graceful trajectory, which has been the foundation for her unexpected segue into coaching.  

Over more than two decades, that has included roles as an assistant and/or specialist with the Swifts and Firebirds, state and national/AIS junior squads, as well as the Diamonds and South African Proteas.  

Despite being a talented junior athlete across multiple sports (basketball, swimming and water polo), Cusack would always choose netball when decision-time came, and finished having ticked every major box. 

A highlight was being part of that incomparable NSW state team for nine of its national championships (including a record eight in a row) and captaining the last in Canberra in 1997. 

Thrilled with this latest honour to go with those from the NSW Sporting Hall of Fame and Netball NSW, Cusack has watched many former teammates inducted, including a handful of her world championship-winning teammates en masse in 2010, and Sue Kenny, most recently, in 2023. 

“It was a bit unexpected, but it’s nice to get that recognition,’’ she said. “Nice to join the group, the gang.’’ 

GENERAL MEMBER - NOELEEN DIX  

When Dix and then-CEO Kate Palmer established the Australian Netball Hall of Fame in 2008, personal recognition was the last thing on the respected president’s mind. 

Yet now that Dix, a former national player, state coaching director, key administrator, long-serving board member and world championships organiser has been deservedly recognised for her service to the sport, the primary reflection is of the “journey” that spanned half a century. 

“All these opportunities for different roles came up for me and I was lucky enough to be able to take them with two hands and run,’’ she said. 

“To start playing as a nine or 10-year-old and fall in love with the sport, then work my way through all the different levels and aspects of the game, and then also to be around when it started to flourish and to have its big moments, that was terrific too.’’ 

Almost 10 years after her finishing her decade as president, a tenure highlighted by Sydney’s successful hosting of the 2015 World Cup, Dix is proudest of netball’s continuing role in servicing the grassroots community while providing a compelling spectacle at the pointy end.  

Helping to supercharge the sport’s profile, participation and commercial opportunities as General Manager, with a one-year-old daughter, Claire, of the landmark 1991 Sydney world championships, the first ever played entirely indoors, Dix was NA’s national executive director from 1988-90 and a board member from 2002-2016. 

 Add to that World Netball delegate, honorary secretary of the Asian Netball Region and senior management positions across multiple sports and events, including all competitions at the 2016 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.  

Dix was also named the Confederation of Australian Sports Administrator of the Year in 1992 and received a World Netball Service Award earlier this year. 

Regarded as a calm and dignified reformer with strong integrity and transparency, the four-Test defender and former Victorian representative had been a major player in the sport’s development. 

Revisiting this writer's 2016 summary of Dix’s career, it read:  

“Few would argue that she leaves Australian netball in a better and more professional place than when she took the head chair at the board table. On the court, the Diamonds have swept all three world titles and two Commonwealth Games gold medals under her watch, their leading lights excellent role models with growing profiles… the big events of 1991 and 2015 notable book-ends.’’ 

Dix will attend Australia’s next home World Cup, in 2027, as a spectator. Her jobs are done.  

Yes, all of them. 

The Netball Australia Awards will take place on October 31 in Melbourne.