SPORT was never on Lupe Fonua’s radar. Now it’s her whole life.

Only picking up a netball at eight years-old, Fonua has taken big strides in the game.

“I wasn’t raised on sport, but I found love for it,” she told Rookie Me Central. “My friends were actually playing when I was younger. So I was like, ‘I’ll come and join’. After that season, they left and I was like, ‘What am I going to do now?’”

Fonua quickly fell in love with the sport and discovered her idol, the one and only Laura Geitz.

Fonua actually started netball as a shooter, but as she got into defence, the youngster would always watch highlights of the former Australian captain and wanted to be just like Geitz on and off the court.

“When I started getting into defence, I was liking the goal keeper position more,” Fonua said. “As I grew up though, I realised that I was a pretty short defender.”

Clearly height hasn’t been an issue for the defender as Fonua was named in the under 21 squad for Tonga in preparation for the Netball World Youth Cup in 2025.

Standing at 5’10, Fonua is preparing to come up against some of the world’s best young shooters such as Australians Lily Graham and Olivia Wilkinson, England’s Sophie Kelly, and Kiwi Summer Temu. 

Balancing netball, school and a social life has been difficult for Fonua but has found a way to cope. Now she has a bit more space in her schedule to spend time with friends outside of sport after having graduated high school and now moving onto university.

“I try to find time for a social life after netball games on Saturdays,” she said.

“I try to find time to hang out with my friends, but other than that during the week, I’m either stuck at school or I’m at netball so it’s pretty hard trying to balance it.”

She loves her friends and teammates at netball and treats them like sisters. Sometimes though she would like to separate everything and just go with the flow.

The 18-year-old is entering her fourth year with the Casey Demons in the VNL as part of their relatively unchanged under 23s team.

She kicked off her netball journey with the Cameo Tigers but then decided to branch out to the Frankston and District Netball Association to continue progressing up the Netball Victoria pathway.

Fonua then decided to take the next step in a whole new environment and move to Casey Netball Association to kick off her under 11s campaign. This ended up paying off, helping her gain confidence to trial for the Casey Demons in VNL.

“Hearing all my friends go to Casey Demons, I didn’t know what VNL was,” Fonua said.

“Then getting into it, I was really scared and really nervous to try it out, but I’m glad I did.

“If they weren’t there, I don’t think I would have survived. It was very hard the preseason getting into it and I wasn’t used to preseason. I wasn’t used to all the fitness that VNL did compared to rep and club.”

Fonua got a quick taste of glory in her first moments wearing black and white for Narre Warren Football Netball Club. During her time at the successful club, Fonua won best and fairest for the Outer East Football Netball League three times in a row for under 17s.

Her move up to B-grade saw her recognised for her rapid rise winning runners up best and fairest for the 2023 season.

“When I got into Narre Warren, I didn’t realise they were a premiership winning club,” Fonua said. “Nearly every season they’d get a premiership. It was really good to win my first premiership with them and I had only played with them for two years.”

Fonua has since departed from Narre Warren and plies her trade with Edithvale-Aspendale Netball Club in the Southern Football Netball League.