The real Elmeré van der Berg

By Linda Pearce

Don’t be fooled by the game face. That fiercely intense expression that Suncorp Super Netball’s recruit of the year Elmeré van der Berg shows from the first whistle to the last.

“I think because most people see me on court with my straight face, I don’t smile, I look angry all the time, people think that’s my personality. But it’s actually not,” van der Berg says. 

“I love to laugh and make a joke and be funny, and even in the gym if there’s a nice song that’s playing I will dance.

“When I’m not on court, I’m never angry, so way different type of (personality) that people close to me see and the people who don’t know me only see the angry part of me. But it’s actually not who I am.”

Clearly, there is much still to learn about the South African shooter, who has made an extraordinary start to what shapes as a long career in SSN, and looms as a marquee player at the upcoming Glasgow Commonwealth Games and the 2027 Netball World Cup in Sydney.

An open and engaging interview subject, van der Berg has already travelled a long way from the family property near Bloemfontein. Before arriving at the Adelaide Thunderbirds, she starred for Manchester Thunder in the UK, where she scored a league-leading 567 goals at 92 per cent accuracy plus 87 Super Shots, across 16 games in 2025.

Yet it was only three years ago that she was feeling so down after the home 2023 NWC in Cape Town that she turned down a contract offer in SSN. Moreover, had she accepted it, she wonders whether she would still be playing a sport she had come to loathe so much that she wanted to hang up her bib.

Struggling with the lingering pain from torn ankle ligaments in 2022, van der Berg had lost both confidence in her performance and her love for the game.

“I was so depressed I didn’t want to go on any camp for netball, I didn’t want to see netball in front of me, so I actually wanted to retire after World Cup,” she recalls.

“Then I got the opportunity to go to SSN and, before I signed the contract, I sat for a very long time, because I’d hear all those stories from SSN that it’s so hard, it’s literally your whole life, it’s all you do there’s no time to do anything else, so it didn’t sound as if that’s the right place for me, because I didn’t like netball at that stage. I hated it.” 

Instead, she ended up in England, where the demands felt less daunting and a stronger South African presence helped ease the transition. Having made her international debut for the Proteas at the age of just 20, and missed the social freedoms of her university friends while busily combining the demands of netball with completing her teaching degree, the fun was gone.

In Manchester it returned; van der Berg’s passion rekindled.

“Then when this opportunity came to come to Thunderbirds, I felt ready and I felt like it was time for me to come here, and now I’m more in love with the game than I was my whole life,” she says. 

“So I think my life would have looked different if I came to SSN in 2024, but I’m glad it went the way it went because, you never know, I might not even have played netball any more if I came over at that time... I think you need to be able to enjoy the netball to be able to put out your best performance on court. So now, three years later I’m really happy with what I did.”

Thankfully, SSN turned out to not be so all-consuming that there is no life balance. Far from it. Down time includes reading and binge-watching the latest series Off Campus, or waiting impatiently for the weekly drop of Sullivan’s Crossing episodes with housemate Kate Heffernan.

The TBirds’ latest pair of imports only met for the first time in Invercargill at the end of last year’s Taini Jamison Trophy. 

“We walked up to each other and we were like ‘hi, do you want to live together?’,” van der Berg recalls with a laugh.

Unexpected, too, has been her raging success so far – 551 goals at 91 per cent and 15 Suncorp Super Shots for the ladder-leading Thunderbirds, opening with a club record 59/62 from 54 minutes of game time – that has exceeded even van der Berg’s expectations.

“I actually didn’t think my season would start this well,” she says. 

“I was actually quite nervous coming into SSN not knowing what to expect, not knowing how it’s going to be, because obviously you hear about how intense it is, it’s like an international game every week.

“So I was quite stressed, but I’m really glad with how I’ve adapted, like, fitted into the team and how the team is performing and I’m having so much fun here with the Thunderbirds. I’m loving netball again.”

Her impact has come as absolutely no surprise to ex-Diamonds star Nicole Cusack, the former Proteas assistant coach who guided the shooters while working under fellow Australian Norma Plummer. 

Cusack was impressed from the start by van der Berg’s height, movement and elevation, combined with a calm, unflappable temperament. 

“She just kind of had it all, really, and an unusual shooting technique, and not afraid to go to the post,” Cusack says.

“She had it all.’’

Hence the frustration when the talented youngster said back in 2024 that she wanted to walk away from the sport. Cusack and Plummer were also concerned van der Berg might be persuaded to stay home by her then-partner – an idea van der Berg dismisses with a laugh: 

“I’m not dumb enough to make a decision based on a man!”

Cusack understands the reasons for eventually starting in England, for the inexperienced spearhead needed to be ready for the world’s best league, and believes the 191cm target can be “at least as good” as the greatest-ever South African-born product, Irene van Dyk. The ceiling is high.

Van der Berg sees her netball future in Australia now, and prompted much mirth among her teammates by jovially declaring that “if I would find a husband here, I’ll stay here.”

Asked to estimate how much of her potential SSN has seen so far, the 24-year-old estimates she is only 80-85 per cent of the way there, having started as a goal attack at school and university before being moved closer to the post, where she admits she initially became a little too settled in her ways.

“Being able to bring that variation into my game, being able to move, being able to hold and shoot from far, shoot close, I think that really helps the players around me as well, because that puts trust in them that if they need me, and if something goes wrong, they know I’ll be there to get the ball, which is really nice,” she says.

Yet, for Cusack, who notes approvingly that van der Berg is unfazed by SSN’s physicality, her most special quality is the fact she complements her mobility and rebounding skills with a willingness and ability to go to the post from anywhere in the circle.

“She can hold and she can move and I think she’s got the all-round goal shooter position nailed,” Cusack says.

“And what do you want from your shooter? You want them to shoot goals. Just turn and shoot,” Cusack says. 

“She can get a bit angry with herself if she misses. You can see that look on her face.” 

Yes, indeed. The angry one. Not to be confused with the real Elmeré van der Berg. So now you know.