The new head coach succeeds Lisa Alexander

Stacey Marinkovich has been appointed as the new Australian Diamonds head coach.

The current head coach of the West Coast Fever is the 15th head coach of the national side and succeeds Lisa Alexander whose contract was not renewed back in February.

Alexander led the Diamonds for more than eight years and was the most-capped Diamonds head coach of all time.

Marinkovich arrives into the role with more than a decade of coaching experience including having been a specialist centre court coach for the Australian development squad and the Australian Fast5 head coach.

She will continue to coach the West Coast Fever until the end of the 2021 Suncorp Super Netball season and then step full-time into the role of the Australian Diamonds head coach as they build towards the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham 2022 and the 2023 Netball World Cup.

“This is something I have been working towards my entire professional life and I’m absolutely honoured and humbled that Netball Australia have granted me the opportunity to lead the world’s best netball team,” she said on the Diamonds’ website.

“I am acutely aware of the expectations, the history and responsibility of taking on such a position and I am very much looking forward to growing the success of the Origin Diamonds program.

Australia last won the Netball World Cup in 2015 and missed out on gold at the most recent Commonwealth Games and Netball World Cup

“Coaching the Origin Diamonds is not about me as a coach. It is about the team that is representing the nation and Netball Australia, and everything I will do in my time as head coach is about the quality of that representation.

“My coaching philosophy has always been to evolve my athletes by embedding a collaborative purpose and generating principles and standards that enable players, support staff, stakeholders and the wider netball community to thrive and advance towards sustained success.”

Marinkovich will announce the 2020/21 Australian Diamonds squad at the end of the 2020 Suncorp Super Netball season and conversations are on-going about the national side’s forthcoming fixtures, including the Constellation Cup.

“Stacey understands the complexity of the performance challenges ahead and the expectation we all have for this team,” Netball Australia CEO Marne Fechner said.

“The incoming coach will be charged with unlocking the extraordinary ability of this team and we’re confident that Stacey’s people first approach, technical capability and drive for success will do just that.”

“We have and will continue to work closely with the West Coast Fever on the succession planning they have in place for their next coach and we will do all that we can to support that process.”