By Linda Pearce
Catherine Cox had thought her almost 15-year-old games record was safe for a while yet. After all, her closest pursuer, Romelda Aiken-George, had retired at the end of 2025 when still nine short of the magic number of 255.
Until, that is, the Jamaican-born shooter was lured across the continent by West Coast Fever for a 19th season, responding to a surprise SOS to replace her pregnant friend Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard under the post.
“I thought I was in the clear for another decade or so. I’m so annoyed!” Cox joked to netball.com.au.
Well, kind of.
“It’s funny because I was chatting with Liz Ellis about Liz Watson breaking her record of Test matches for Australia one day and she’s like ‘nah, records are made to be broken. If anyone’s gonna do it, it would be so great if it’s Lizzy’.
“And I said to her ‘you’re so full of crap!’ No-one wants their record broken. Ever.
“Having said that, if anyone was gonna do it, Romelda has been around forever and a day and she’s a superstar player who’s done pretty much everything, so it’s a pretty amazing legacy for her, isn’t it?”
One that includes four premierships and three league MVP awards during a four-club career that has netted well over 9000 goals, including 389 at 83.5 per cent accuracy in Suncorp Super Netball’s first nine rounds.
One that almost ended after being cut by the Queensland Firebirds following the birth of daughter Gigi in 2022, was resuscitated by the NSW Swifts en route to a runners-up performance in 2023, then extended by the Adelaide Thunderbirds, including a grand final MVP effort in the 2024 premiership.
Cox should have known better than to get comfortable when the retirement announcement came in mid-2025, for, like all the best attackers, Aiken-George keeps presenting. But a congratulatory message is coming before Friday’s milestone against the Swifts.
“I don’t want it (the record) to be broken, and weekly everyone’s joking to me ‘Has Romelda hurt herself yet, blah, blah, blah?’,” Cox says.
“You certainly don’t wish that on anybody, particularly in the midst of a season, so I will reach out to her in some way.”
Aiken-George will break the record for the most national league games this weekend.
If there is little left unsaid by Aiken-George after myriad milestones and achievements, then the perspective of multiple former coaches helps to add extra brush strokes to an evolving portrait.
Having described herself as “a scrawny stick of a woman” after arriving from Kingston for the 2008 season, she gradually bulked up in the gym and was coaxed towards the independence that gaining a drivers’ licence and leaving her host family would provide.
And, as the shy 196cm youngster known as ‘Diddy’ started to flourish on the court and find her voice in team meetings and beyond, a trailblazing and often unstoppable superstar emerged.
“Her elevation and her ability to do splits was incredible. She was one of the world’s best when she had that agility, through that 2010 to 2016 (period),” says former Diamonds star Roselee Jencke, the Firebirds head coach from 2010-2020.
Aiken-George is a different player now but team success has been a constant, with the third-placed Fever’s 2026 fate still to be decided, and a personal best 67 goals in Round 4 against the Swifts confirmation that nor is she yesterday's hero.
Jencke ascribes the shooter’s longevity to win-driven coaches looking to fill an important vacancy – a tall bookend able to shoot a high volume of goals from close range – and devising a game plan accordingly.
“Romelda has been able to stay relevant because she has been able to provide that skill set and that service,” Jencke says.
“She’s not the same player that she was – leaping tall buildings in a single bound, doing the splits – but she’s obviously more mature in her physical presence on court, which is valuable to a certain coaching set-up and structure.”
Aiken-George first debuted in 2008.
Briony Akle did not even have Aiken-George’s phone number when she sent a social media message to explore what might be possible as a temporary replacement for Sam Wallace-Joseph in 2023.
While her athleticism had declined, experience was a big tick. So, too, on-court presence, leadership, knowledge and composure in tight situations. But to still be going now, two additional clubs later?
“It doesn’t surprise me – that’s the craziest thing! I just think it’s the way she goes about business and she doesn’t get stressed about the big stuff,” says Akle.
“She offers so much to every team she’s in, and … as a really awesome human she deserves all the accolades she can get.”
For Akle, what makes Aiken-George unique is simple: the fact that she continues to say “yes”, and be courageous enough to try, whatever the potential outcome, and however fierce the social media scrutiny.
“The fact she just said ‘yes, let’s give it a go’, she’s a wonderful mentor to the girls coming through,” says the Swifts boss.
“She’s that old style of netballer that has been around, but to put her hand up and go ‘yep, I can still do this’, that’s an awesome thing to have.”
Akle praised Aiken-George's willingness to say 'yes'.
In Adelaide, where she became an unexpected Thunderbird and celebrated her fourth and favourite flag in 2024, head coach Tania Obst wanted a seasoned and stable shooter and was delivered one selflessly team-orientated, diligent with her preparation and recovery, able to instil confidence and generously willing to guide youngsters Lucy Austin and Lauren Frew.
“Initially she had to put herself out there and be a bit vulnerable,” Obst says.
“She was shifting again from her family, but once she settled in you could see just how she works and how her mindset works, and just her strength of character then to not just talk the talk but do it, that’s the thing that I really enjoyed.”
The games record, says Obst, is both a triumph of resilience and adaptability and a remarkable achievement for a player she calls “the original import”; showing what can be done and leading the way for compatriots now here in much bigger numbers.
“I remember watching as a fan when her and Gretel (Bueta) played together, they took the game to another level. They just played at a different level; they played at a different height to everybody else, and teams had to adjust, and Romelda’s had to adjust as well.”
Surprised, though, by her current comeback in Perth, adding the green dress to a wardrobe already stocked with purple, red and pink? Yes and no, says Obst, for retirement can be tricky when you still love the game and have known little else.
“When that opportunity arose for Romelda and she let me know I thought ‘well, good on you’. And I really wish her all the best, and I hope that she can finish off the season in a manner that is befitting all she’s done.”
Yet the body is creaking and the knees are sore, as Cox saw from courtside before that Round 4 masterclass, with Aiken-George barely joining the team warm-up.
“The body’s struggling, and you can clearly see that. But once she got into the game it didn’t matter because she knows how to position her body, she knows how to play energy-efficient netball, they found her super-easily.
“It just goes to show the experience and the smarts of a player that’s been around such a long time.”
Aiken-George took out player of the match accolades in the 2024 SSN Grand Final.
Interesting, too, is the fact that, for the first time, the most-capped athlete in the history of the various iterations of the Australian domestic league (including the 11 years of trans-Tasman competition) was imported from overseas.
“Romelda has played here the whole time, so she 100 per cent deserves it. She’s been here and racked up all those games on Australian soil,” says Cox.
Jencke, who points out that Aiken-George is an Aussie citizen, with an Australian-born daughter and husband, agrees it is a sign of the times.
“Definitely life in Australia has been a blessing for her and seen her mature and develop, bring her out of her shell, and become a confident woman,” says Netball Queensland’s head of talent and development.
“It’s an international game, really... It’s just a credit to her to have performed so well over a long period of time, and still being able to provide value, so that’s a feather in her cap.”
Cox, meanwhile, is clinging to the last games record she retains: as the most capped player for the Sydney/NSW Swifts, with 192 from 1997-2011. Her 10-year-old, Harper, has a plan to keep that one in the family.
“I know Paige Hadley (186 games after Saturday’s return) is sneaking up on me,” says Cox, 49, who retired in 2014 after a final premiership with her third club.
“My daughter actually said ‘Mum, just speak to Briony (Akle). Come out of retirement and play a few more games for the Swifts’.”
Yeah, nah, not happening. So, as Hadley closes, Aiken-George surpasses, having arrived as a gangly teenager from a small island and made her life and name in the wide brown land she has long called home.
As Obst puts it: “I’m sure she has a real sense of pride that Gigi will be able to look on and go ‘this is what your mum did when you were a young girl’. I think it’s a remarkable journey.”
