Queensland Gems – History
The Queensland Gems represent the state in Marie Little Shield, Netball Australia’s national tournament for women with intellectual disabilities.
Introduced in 2013, the annual competition is named after its instigator and protagonist for inclusivity, Marie Little OAM, a keen netballer, and a fierce advocate for the inclusion of people with an intellectual disability in community and elite sport.
In interviews Little described the moment her passion for disability inclusion ignited: “It was an innocent question from a young girl with a disability who asked why she couldn’t play netball.” Naming the national netball tournament after Marie Little was a fitting tribute to her legacy of advocacy.
The Gems play with the same pride and enthusiasm as Netball Queensland’s other state teams, not allowing their disability to get in the way of passing, shooting, defending and ultimately pushing to win.
The Gems heritage began with Merrin McCulloch and Phoebe North, who in 2014 promoted the representative opportunity through Metropolitan Netball Association’s Netability sessions. They were part of a legacy of inclusion at Metro – in 2024 the Netability program celebrated 40 years of providing an opportunity for people with disabilities to play netball. This became a passion for the two women who set up training camps and soon decided from the female participants they would select a Queensland side for the 2016 Marie Little Shield in New South Wales.
“We only had nine players and even borrowed a New South Wales girl. Being very inexperienced, we didn’t win a game. But we were encouraged that our player Nicole Skerman was named player of the tournament and that gave us the enthusiasm to keep going - we celebrated like we had won the gold,” McCullogh said.
Committed to being a part of the Marie Little Shield competition the team needed a name and foundation team member Jennifer Collins came up with the name Gems. Done!
The following year in Perth the newly named Gems fielded a full team in an expanded competition and Nicole Skerman was again named Player of the Tournament. Nicole played in both Goal Defence and Goal Keeper positions, but is remembered for being an all-rounder who was a strong midcourter.
The Marie Little Shield was first held in Brisbane in 2018 on the back courts of the Boondall Entertainment Centre and finally the Gems had built up to a full roster of 12 players. Nicole Skerman was again named Player of the Tournament although the Gems were not amongst the winners.
Brisbane again hosted the national competition in 2019 and the Gems included a young talented and enthusiastic netballer, young Jack Matthews. Unfortunately for him the competition was classed as female only, but the silver lining was that Jack was appointed development coach – a position he still holds with the Gems. Jack is one of the few people with a disability to be part of the coaching/management team for a Marie Little Shield state team.
Sadly, the ravages of Covid meant there were no Marie Little Shield competitions until 2022 when the competition resumed in Sydney. Several foundation Gems players had retired so the Gems, under the inspiration of McCulloch, held "Come and Try " days to build numbers.
This led to a very successful landmark memorandum of understanding between Netball Queensland and Hit the Dot’s Hidden Gems Netball Academy, identified as an important pathway to the Gems. This organisation was established by McCulloch to build the skills and amplify the capabilities of women eligible to represent Queensland, foster confidence and self-esteem in the athletes, and promote respect among the broader community for high performance netballers with an intellectual disability.
Marie Little Shield was back in Brisbane in 2024, at Nissan Arena. A team of 12 strong with five training partners, the Gems debuted two new players and farewelled two foundational team members, Jasmin Catterall and Wilhemena Thaw, who assumed the role of captain for the 2024 team.
“Our two debutantes learnt so much and really improved their game over the weekend. Charlee (Kibble) grabbed many intercepts in defence while Emily (Kennedy) in the game against Tassie shot the lights out before entertaining everyone with her celebration dances after each goal,” McCulloch recalled.