The Melbourne Vixens are the 2025 Super Netball champions, sending coach Simone McKinnis out a winner in her final game with a 59-58 win over the West Coast Fever.
The Vixens survived a late Fever charge to hold on and become just the second team to claim the title after finishing in fourth – following on from the Sunshine Coast Lightning in 2018.
It’s an incredible turnaround for a side that had a less than 20 per cent chance of even making finals when they slipped to 2-4 before McKinnis then dropped her coaching bombshell.
“I’m so happy we could send her out. It’s very rare you get fairytales like this. It’s insane,” Jo Weston said.
Led by match MVP Kiera Austin’s supershots in the first half, it was the defensive work of Rudi Ellis and Jo Weston in a dominant third term that set up the win.
Fever coach Dan Ryan pleaded with his players to “put them under the pump” as the Vixens did what they liked in attack.
And after staring down a five-goal final term, he did get the fight he was looking for. A late Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard (51 goals at 100%) supershot gave the Fever a chance with less a minute to play – but the Vixens were too good in the dying stages to hold on.
Skipper Kate Moloney was slapping the floor as she hit the deck to draw the penalty in one of the last plays of the game.
The inclusion of young Liv Wilkinson, in her debut grand final at the age of 21, didn’t pay off as a team-high five turnovers in 23 minutes proved costly.
And with the Vixens buoyed by the record 15,013 crowd, they didn’t relent.
Saturday night’s one-goal victory seals the club’s second-ever premiership – remarkably also against the West Coast Fever back in 2020.
While it was jubilation for Simone in her final match at the helm, it was devastation for the Fever at Rod Laver Arena.
“It’s pure devastation to be honest,” Fever skipper Jess Anstiss said.
“It’s hard to get the words out.
“I don’t think we brought our A-game and Vixens did.”
After entering the grand final as hot favourites off the back of their record-breaking season where they claimed 13-straight wins, the Fever fell apart in the match that mattered.
Their record semi final win over the NSW Swifts left Dan Ryan’s charges with the week off heading into the decider – and ultimately it cost them their momentum.
The Vixens victory ensures master coach McKinnis bows out a winner.
Her announcement back in May that she would not be seeking a new deal at the club proved the turning point of Melbourne’s season.
Her emotional three-quarter-time speech while staring down a 10-goal deficit to the NSW Swifts in last week’s preliminary final will also go down in Vixens folklore.
And that emotional charge carried the Vixens into Saturday’s decider as they saved their best for last – and bucked a two-game grand final losing streak.
Melbourne had entered the grand final losing their past two – against Adelaide last season and the Fever in 2022.
The only intercept of the first half came to Vixens goal keeper Rudi Ellis, who is spending plenty of time sprawled on the boards.
But together with Jo Weston, the Melbourne defensive duo continued to build in a brilliant third term.
Weston was everywhere, and her massive intercept on young Liv Wilkinson’s poor ball was what pushed the home side out to that five-goal buffer.
That margin would be enough to hang on in a thrilling final quarter to seal their premiership.
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