For over a decade, Hunter netballers have driven down the M1 to pull on a dress with someone else’s region on it, playing in the Netball NSW Premier League with teams like the Central Coast Heart.
From 2027, that dress will carry their home, too, with Central Coast Heart rebranding to “Hunter Central Coast Heart” before the next state season begins.
In the end, the club’s high-performance manager, Di Brown, told Newy.com.au this week that the numbers were so strong that the Heart simply had to make the move—which the club announced mid-season.
“When I crunched the numbers over the previous five seasons that I analysed, between 70 and 80% of our athletes and staff were drawn from the Hunter region,” Brown said.
“They drove the distance to us, they always wore our Central Coast Heart brand, and I just don’t think we were being respectful to them.”
The Heart board had been weighing the move as far back as the early 2020s, Brown explained, and had been in talks with Hunter Netball, the Coast’s three associations (Gosford, Woy Woy, and Wyong), and Netball NSW about what a possible rebrand would look like when it finally happened.
The Hunter has over a dozen associations to the Coast’s three, and Brown was very frank about what that meant for the club’s future. “That told me we weren’t sustainable long-term if the Hunter gained a standalone licence.”
Hunter Netball had already tried several times to join a NSW expansion—this Newy reporter even covered an attempt that was rejected way back in 2017.
Heart’s state licence dates to 2014, when Central Coast Netball was the only non-metropolitan bidder to win a place in the inaugural Premier League. The club took the court in 2016, and went on to win silverware in the 2018 Opens campaign after beating Eastwood Ryde Hawks 60–55 in the final.
There were several Novocastrians in that title-winning squad, including Maddie Taylor, Sophie Buckley, Natarlia Bridges, and Tarsha Hawley. Taylor had also won the Nance Kenny OAM Medal for player of the year the previous season.
The same period saw Newcastle young guns like Hannah Cullen, Eliza Hand, Nikita Jackson, and Danielle Taylor in the Coast team’s under-20s squad.
Now, after eleven seasons, the Hunter is in the name too.
“The Hunter has always been part of Heart, so let’s reflect that,” Brown said.
The order of the name follows the Hunter Central Coast region used by the netball state body, in education, and in other sports. “There was no reason to swap it around. That is our region,” Brown said.
Heart’s colours are staying the same as well, and the club’s territory now runs, in Brown’s words, “anything north of the M1… anything north of Hornsby.”
Chair Dianne Selby said in a statement from Heart earlier this year that the new name was a natural progression. “We are incredibly proud to formally recognise our extended Heart family across the Hunter region,” she said.
And it all goes far beyond the new “Hunter Central Coast” name. Brown told Newy the club has been working through the current Premier League offseason to secure new training venues across the Hunter, with satellite sessions and strength and conditioning blocks planned north of the Coast.
“We didn’t want it to be in name only,” she said. “The girls are travelling fairly. They’re not always travelling to the Coast; we’re travelling up to the Hunter.”
It suits the staff as well: the club’s physio and three or four of its coaches live in the Hunter.
Home games may also get a slight tweak in future years, Newy understands.
Right now, Premier League matches are played midweek at Netball Central in Sydney, and Heart gets one home game a year. Brown hopes that can change.
Hunter Netball chair Jodi Cassar has thrown her support behind the proposed Hunter Indoor Sports Centre, and Brown said a venue with regulation courts would open the door to the now-rebranded team hosting more matches.
“Instead of having one home game a year, we could potentially have one on the Coast and one in Newcastle,” Brown said on the plans.
“Your fan base is your future. That’s your growth, that’s your depth.”
Finally, there’s one last change coming for the Heart next year: with the new era comes a new dress, designed by Gamilaroi artist and former Heart player Krystal Dallinger.
Dallinger moved to Newcastle with her mum in 2017 to chase her netball dreams. The GWS-backed Giants, now the Sydney Sirens, wore her First Nations Round designs for years from 2018, and the whole Super Netball competition showcased her artwork across its 2023 First Nations Round.
Brown said the dress design’s theme was walking and growing together, with Dallinger adding symbols for the athlete and the support network around her.
“It’s really beautiful, because it acknowledges the two coastal communities working together, supporting, and growing,” she said.
The dress will be revealed at Heart’s season induction, on Saturday, 5 December.
Heart’s Opens and under 23s squads for ‘27 are also expected to be locked in before then.
Heart’s academy trials this weekend have drawn more than 180 applicants aged 15 and up, with as many as 60 places across three tiers.
Brown firmly believes the pathway matters beyond the Premier League. The Hunter has long chased a Super Netball licence, and she says a single, structured pathway feeding the whole region can only help.
“The ultimate pie in the sky is a Super Netball team in the greater Hunter region,” she said. “I know there are bodies in the Hunter region lobbying strongly for a Super Netball licence, which we totally support.”
For now, the aim is a club that outlasts the people who built it. “When people like me are long gone, the franchise is really healthy,” Brown said. “That’s the objective.”
