Donnell Wallam: 'I've never felt so comfortable in a team before.' Photo / Photosport
Suzanne McFadden for LockerRoom
Something clicked for Donnell Wallam this season with the Mystics – and it wasn’t just the sound of her wrist breaking.
It was as though she’d found her netball people.
“I’ve never felt so comfortable in a team before. I just relate to a lot of the girls so much more,” says the Australian Diamonds goal shoot, and proud Noongar woman, just days away from playing in the first elite netball grand final of her career.
“You know, the Aboriginal culture and the Māori culture are so similar. It’s as simple as some of the language we use with each other, and I just felt at ease straight away. That’s what I’ve enjoyed most.”
Yet Wallam, unwanted in Australia’s top league, admits she was “initially scared” to join the Mystics, stepping into the giant shoes left by Grace Nweke.
Then she’d barely got started before it all came crashing down – a fractured wrist in just the third round of the ANZ Premiership threatened to end her season. So when doctors gave her six weeks to recover, she told them she’d only need four – and slotted back into the Mystics shooting circle in round eight with little trace of discomfort.
“I think I’ve come over here, taken on the challenge and it’s made me a better player. I’ve really developed my game here,” the 31-year-old says.
On Sunday, Wallam will line up in the premiership grand final in a Mystics side who’ve been all the better for her presence.
Assistant coach Rob Wright, also an Aussie, says the shooter known in the team as Nelly has been a joy to work with. “There’s something about Nelly. People really warm to her, she’s really humble and understated, and then she backs it up on court,” he says. “And she always wants to be better.”
Wallam’s success on court here – shooting 275 goals at 88%, even after missing four games, and seamlessly falling into sync with magical Mystics feeder Peta Toeava – has attracted attention across the Tasman.
The Mystics offered Wallam a lifeline after she failed to score a contract with a Suncorp Super Netball franchise this year – let go by the Queensland Firebirds after three seasons, who signed up Ugandan star Mary Cholhok (they finished at the bottom of the table with just two wins).
Wallam made headlines in Australia last week when she was invited back to the Australian Diamonds’ training camps. This time, though, it’s essentially as a training partner – losing her place in the national squad she’s been in since 2022.
“It’s a bit of a different role this time as an invitee, but I’m still grateful to have that opportunity again,” Wallam says, taking it all in her long stride. “It’s always an honour.
“There may be an opportunity to be elevated, otherwise you’re in and around the environment still learning and developing your game.”
Regardless of the outcome in the grand final against Tactix, a home game for the Mystics at West Auckland’s Trusts Arena, Wallam will return to Western Australia with more than she arrived here with.
“I’ve got so much more family now. The Mystics are my family away from home,” she says.
Defending premiership champions for two years running, the Mystics had their doubters at the start of the season. “I don’t think many people picked us to make the grand final,” Wright says. “They may have picked us in the top three.”
You can blame it on the Nweke Factor. Losing the prolific Silver Ferns goal shooter was seen as a blow the Mystics might struggle to come back from.
When Wright and Mystics head coach Tia Winikerei heard Nweke was signing with the NSW Swifts, they started their search for a new shooter.
“It’s not easy to replace a 55-plus goal shooter,” Wright says. “There was a suggestion Nelly wasn’t going to have a spot [in the SSN league], and we were thinking she would be a really good pick-up for us – in terms of how our midcourt operates and how we play our games.”
Megan Anderson, a former Diamonds shooter who played her final season of elite netball for the Mystics, coached Wallam at the Firebirds and is now her manager. That connection helped the Mystics coaching team make their approach.
“We were fortunate Nelly was really keen to come to us,” Wright says.
Wallam met two ANZ Premiership teams. “Once I spoke to Tia, I was initially scared. Like a good scared, though,” she says. “That was a main reason I chose Mystics – I knew I’d be challenged in a different way.
“It was playing different styles of netball over here, being able to adapt to the moment, and not being that one-dimensional tall, holding shooter. So I don’t become too predictable.”
But there was one thing that made her think twice about joining the defending champions: replacing Nweke.
“I didn’t want to go to a team where I had to fill the void left by Grace, because she’s an amazing athlete,” Wallam says. “But Tia reassured me they weren’t looking to replace her; they wanted me to be me, and play to my strengths.”
Immediately, the Mystics coaches were impressed by Wallam’s “thirst to improve”, Wright says. “You can tell her something and she’ll go, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that’, and she puts it into effect pretty quickly. She’s easy to coach.”
Wallam swiftly found her place in the shooting circle alongside Filda Vui, now in her fifth season with the Mystics. Vui has had one of her best seasons in 2025, thriving on her new responsibility in the circle, and the introduction of the super shot.
The 29-year-old has sunk 28 two-pointers (with 64% accuracy), and some were game clinchers.
“Filly has stepped into a more influential role, more dominant, than previously,” says Wright. “It means the opposition’s having to worry about two targets, and especially with the two-point shot. It just keeps them guessing even more.”
Wallam’s been struck by how cool, calm and collected Vui has been, especially when the game is on the line.
“Nothing fazes Filda out there,” Wallam says. “It’s so nice to have such a confident goal attack to play with, who I can swing the ball out to for the supershot, and it takes some of the pressure off me.”
And then there’s pairing up with Toeava – one of the shrewdest, smartest feeders in the game. For years, her miracle passes to Nweke stole the spotlight, but she’s proven she’s no one-trick pony, setting up Wallam under the post with just as much flair and precision.
Toeava and Wallam have spent a lot of one-on-one time together, honing exactly when and where to deliver the ball.
“I’ve got to give huge credit to Rob and Tia and the way they’ve structured our training so we’ve had the opportunity to gel like we have,” Wallam says. “It’s given us the upper hand; we know each other so well on court.
“Sometimes, I want to sit back in the goal circle and watch Peta do her thing, but then I’ve got to have my eyes open ever single time she has a hand on the ball – I have to expect the ball from anywhere.
“She’s such a workhorse. In trainings, she sets the standard. She’s someone you want to play for, like having a big sister in the team. I’ve loved playing with her.”
Wallam continues to play with a brace on her wrist since her unlucky break against the Steel in her third ANZ Premiership game. As she fell out of court, diving to keep a rebounded ball in, Wallam had a sinking feeling she’d broken a bone.
“I went off, strapped it up and tried to catch a few balls, but couldn’t do it without pain. I was trying to convince myself and everyone around me it wasn’t broken, just a bit sore. But I’d felt that kind of pain when I broke my arm a few years ago.”
Wallam was in England in 2021, when she suffered a break to that same arm in her second game for the Leeds Rhinos. She was sidelined for seven weeks yet was rated the Super League’s most accurate shooter at 95%. The following year she became the first Indigenous player in the Diamonds in 22 years.
This year, x-rays showed she a small fracture in her left wrist – one she was determined wouldn’t end her season. “When the doctor said six weeks, I said ‘give me four’,” she says.
She impressed the Mystics team by still turning up to every training and working with young shooter Sophia Lafaiali’i, called up from the Northern Marvels NNL side to fill the Diamonds role. She stood on the sideline yelling encouragement at home games.
“I didn’t really like watching because I was just too close! I was a bit down on myself for that injury,” Wallam says. “But it also gave me confidence we have so much depth in our squad that we can go to our bench no matter what.
She credits the Mystics’ medical team, as well as the Australian Diamonds’ doctor, for giving her the right advice and getting her back on court five weeks later. “I was just so happy to run out on the boards with the girls again, and to wear the Mystics’ heritage dress, which meant a lot to me,” says Wallam.
In three weeks, Wallam will return home to her “puppies” – two miniature dachshunds. And she’ll prepare for a couple of camps with the Australian Diamonds squad in September – one of four invitees who are essentially training partners to the 18-player squad.
Diamonds coach Stacey Marinkovich told Fox Netball that after Wallam’s disrupted season, she was “keen to see what she’s evolved in her game, what she’s learnt playing in a different environment”, and how she can regain her connection with the squad.
The 1.93m shooter could be a real asset for the Diamonds in the Constellation Cup in October, having got the better of New Zealand defenders throughout the premiership.
Wallam’s Auckland flat will soon disband, with fellow Aussies and Stars players, Remi Kamo and Charlie Bell, heading home too.
“It’s been really fun living with them, having some familiarity over here, and bouncing our thoughts off each other after trainings, games and stuff,” Wallam says.
Now Netball NZ has changed the Silver Ferns’ eligibility rules, and Nweke could play another season in Australia and still wear the black dress, it’s uncertain whether Wallam will return for another season in Auckland – especially with the future of the premiership here still to be revealed.
But she’s certain about one thing: “I’ve absolutely loved it here.”
Mystics and Tactix square off in the ANZ Premiership grand final in Auckland on Sunday at 4pm. On the same day, Grace Nweke’s Swifts will host the SSN preliminary final against the Vixens.
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.