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Jo Weston seems to have been destined for the sporting life.
Before becoming a netball star, the young Weston was a self-confessed tennis fanatic. As a child, she’d carry a giant tennis ball to the Australian Open and wait endlessly to get it signed by superstars like the Williams sisters.
‘I was literally getting an indentation from the boundary because I was leaning over so hard to get it signed,’ Weston says. ‘I was diehard’.
It’s reflective of a charming passion that Weston still carries today. Her enthusiasm and tireless commitment to sport have taken her to a glittering Australian netball career, capped by a 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medal and a recent Super Netball premiership with the Melbourne Vixens.
Now, for the latest Stories of Wonder podcast, Weston sits down with host Dom Hennequin to talk about her journey from that tennis-obsessed kid to netball stardom – and what comes next.
Even by the standards of a career netball star in Australia, 2025 has been a big one for Jo Weston.
The Melbourne Vixens triumphed in the Super Netball Grand Final by a solitary goal (59-58), taking down West Coast Fever to be crowned the best netball team in Australia. The stalwart defender then added the Sharelle McMahon Medal as the Vixens’ most valuable player of the season. She also bid farewell to champion coach and mentor, Simone McKinnis.
‘Simone’s been so influential with so many people,’ Weston says. ‘She’s really had an emphasis on strong foundation skills and then also just encouraging us to be able to grow and try new things in a really safe environment as an athlete, which I think is really important. Just to have everyone there in Melbourne [at the Grand Final] to see how much it meant to her, I think it really put the bow on the present that was us in 2025.’
While these successful netball seasons are undoubtedly the goal for stars like Weston, they don’t arrive out of the blue. For Jo Weston, premierships and MVPs are just part of the long journey to a stellar netball career in Australia and internationally.
Weston was born in Corowa, on the New South Wales side of the Murray River. The family then moved to Rutherglen and Eurobin before settling in Melbourne.
While she reflects on the natural beauty of alpine and country Victoria, growing up outside the big city also introduced Weston to the power of small-town sports culture.
‘Country Victoria holds a really big place in my heart,’ she says. ‘I think in terms of where sport contributes to the community, it’s kind of the lifeblood in a lot of areas like that. It’s a really great space when people join towns and they get the opportunity to come in when they’re young kids and have a space where they can learn leadership or learn communication skills.’
Long before her Australian netball career, Weston’s first sporting passion was tennis, and she describes her younger self as ‘desperately’ wanting to grow up to play professionally. The community and camaraderie of a team sport like netball, though, held some advantages over the solo pursuit of tennis.
‘I joined a netball team at school because I liked the friendship element of it,’ Weston says. ‘I’ve got two older brothers and I think netball is a very unique sport in that it’s been built by women for women, in a way. I think for me, coming from that family dynamic, it sort of gave me that sister aspect that I didn’t really have in my immediate family.’
With a passion for competition coursing through her veins – and a natural height advantage certainly a bonus – Weston quickly found netball replacing tennis as her sporting goal. It was with the help of mentors along the way that she realised there was a top-level pathway and Australian netball career waiting for her.
‘I had some really amazing coaches,’ Weston says. ‘Lisa Gellard, who coached me at the Victorian state team. Gillian Lee, who coached me in one of my very first state-level underage teams as well. I played all the way through high school and I had quite a bit of success being a defender. And then it was only when I got asked to move to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) by Julie Fitzgerald, who used to be the Giants netball head coach up until this year, I think she saw quite a bit of potential in me.’
After her time in Canberra at the AIS, Weston’s netball career began with Australia’s premier netball league, at the time known as the ANZ Championship. ‘I ended up being signed with the Vixens for the 2014 season and I think my initial rookie contract was for $13,000 for an entire year,’ Weston says. ‘So, it’s not a lot of money.’
The contract is indicative of a broader issue with women’s sport in Australia – that it’s rarely as well-compensated as it ought to be.
Having worked part time retail jobs when she started playing for the Vixens, Weston now advocates financially for her fellow players as president of the Australian Netball Players Association.
‘Most players are interested in getting paid more and, for us, it was really important to have that element of a revenue share component in our playing agreement,’ Weston says. ‘A lot of other sports have it. So, my theory was that if netball wants to remain competitive as the professional sport of choice for women and girls coming through over AFLW, over basketball, over the NRL, we have to keep progressing in order to make sure players are being remunerated appropriately and we’re also evolving.’
While she negotiates for fair remuneration as a player now, Weston has always had one eye on life beyond her Australian netball career. After completing a Bachelor of Commerce and working for accounting firm Deloitte for a period during her early career, Weston has since changed tack.
Now, she’s studying for a Master of Communication at Deakin University.
‘It’s been a really great pursuit for me, I’ve really loved it,’ Weston says. ‘I feel like it’s made me more rounded, definitely more research-orientated and more capable of forming my own opinions and being able to articulate myself in a way. I’m majoring in public relations, but I’ve really found interest in the corporate affairs type roles and crisis management and a bit of everything.’
Balancing study at Deakin with a Netball Australia career is, understandably, a challenge. But, since starting her masters in 2020, Weston has been content to take things slowly, and is taking advantage of Deakin’s flexible learning options.
‘Initially, I was hoping to come into campus a little bit, but I’ve ended up mainly just doing cloud subjects online, which has been really great in terms of the flexibility that’s offered,’ she says.
Regardless of where she ends up post-netball, it’s clear that Weston is excited about the current shape of women’s sports, and the possibilities open to the next generation of sports-mad girls in Australia.
‘I think about having girls that come and watch and being able to see women competing at the elite level,’ she says. ‘They see playing sport as a career, whether it’s netball or whether it’s any other of the options they have. There are so many options now. And that’s the really exciting thing because for me, when I was younger, I saw the tennis and those were the only real female athletes I saw outside of watching the Olympics every four years.’
For those hoping to follow in her footsteps, Weston has a few pieces of wisdom from her career as one of Australian netball’s very best.
‘I’d say definitely listen to your coaches,’ she says. ‘Ask for feedback and always try to be as optimistic as you can. I think it can be really challenging if you get injured or you might not be getting as much court time. And, for me, it was definitely trying lots of different sports. I think that’s what’s really made me love netball so much, because I found something special that I really resonated with.’
