It was the Roar’s victorious Round 2 journey to Peel that set the stage for Trinity’s return.
At the time of injury, Trinity was an extremely exciting prospect, a member of the Fever Academy, a WAIS scholarship recipient and part of the Australian Netball Centre for Excellence.
She also represented WA in numerous State squads and was selected in the 2019/20 Australian Netball World Youth Cup squad.
While training for the State Team in 2021, Trinity tore her ACL, leaving her out of the game for at least 12 months.
After biding her time waiting to get back on the court, scans revealed the injury was not healing as desired and she had to wait months till she was match ready.
Trinity said hearing she would be out of the game was heartbreaking.
“It was pretty devastating, it felt like a long time out of the game.”
While many would take the time away from the game completely, Trinity stuck with her club in every way she could.
She still attended every match and training session she could as well as volunteering countless hours of her time to her club.
As a recognition of her perseverance, she won the club’s Spirit of Netball Award and Club Person of the Year in 2022 despite not playing a single game.
Western Roar President Simone Pirie said Trinity was invaluable to the club on and off the court.
“Trinity is the most giving club member I’ve seen in recent memory for me. She's mature beyond her years and we're just super fortunate that she's at our club,” she said.
“She's a unique human being and we're so, so lucky to have her at the club, she's been an enormous and a fantastic example to our youngsters coming through to look at what a club person looks like.”
Pirie spoke of how the club was devasted when they heard the news of Trinity’s injury.
“It's always devastating when a young person injures themselves and especially someone like Trinity, who was really on an exciting pathway.”
Trinity said while the experience was tough, support by her teammates, club and Netball WA made the experience easier.
“Everyone at the Roar was really great. Every time I'd be down at training they’d always be checking on me, asking how I'm going and everyone was really nice and really helpful for everything.”
“At academy trainings they would always include me, if I could do anything then I would join in through different ways. They were really helpful, all the coaches, support staff and especially my teammates, everyone just made me feel as involved as possible.”
For Trinity, finally stepping out onto the court and taking the first centre pass from teammate Zoe Cransberg was a mix of emotions.
“I was just itching to get out. Obviously I missed the first game, but I really, really wanted to push to for that start,” she said.
“I was so nervous the whole time, but once I was out it felt great.
“I was a bit stressed to throw the ball away and make mistakes but I knew that everyone around me would support me no matter what, so it felt really great to get out there.”
For Pirie, Trinity’s return was also an emotional moment.
“We all had a bit of a tear in our eye when she first ran on to court, after all that time we knew what she'd gone through to get back on court and how hard she'd worked,” she said.
“To see her over the last few weeks start to really feel comfortable and do those amazing intercepts that only Trin can do, sends shivers down your spine. It's such a good story.”
Now that she’s back on the court, Trinity feels the time away from the game has made her stronger and helped build her passion for netball.
“Having that time to reflect just made me see how much I actually really enjoy the sport, the people around it, the training and the games,” she said.
“As much as the time off was hard, it really helped me on and off the court, mentally and physically, so I came back a lot stronger physically and mentally as well.”
Trinity now has her focus on progressing through the GIG WANL season and believes she can return to the levels she was playing and then some.
“I want to get our team to a grand final that would be really great if we could do that back-to-back,” she said.
“Individually I'd love to push for the Australian Netball Championships at the end of this year, but just to have a really solid state league season and finishing it off on a high would be great.”
Article By. Oliver Lane
