Julia Nash from the Werribee Centrals is not your typical netball player.
When she isn’t defending on the netball court, Nash is taking on the football field as a versatile ruck.
Since joining the Werribee Centrals in 2019, Nash has made her mark across both netball and football, utilising her height and competitiveness to stand out within the league.
“I’ve played local netball since juniors but nothing high standard until I joined Centrals,” Nash said.
“I was looking at joining a football and netball club to give myself something to do on the weekends on both a sports and social side.”
Nash started out by playing in B Grade for the Centrals but quickly made her way into the A Grade netball side last year after an impressive finals campaign.
“In 2024, I went back-to-back and won the B grade netball premiership as well as the football premiership,” Nash reflected.
“It was the first ever grand final win I’d had in either team so it was very special. Nothing will ever beat it.”
In the 2025 netball season, Nash was the runner up for the league’s Margaret Webb medal, polling just three votes short with 25 total votes.
“It was sort of a shock and I didn’t expect to poll that highly at all since it was my first year in A Grade,” Nash recalled.
“I think it was a real honour and I was really proud.”
As she continues to play in both the women’s football team and the A Grade netball side for the Werribee Centrals, Nash recognises the challenge of committing to both sports.
“I missed two games of netball finals because I was playing football finals and winning the premiership and then stepped straight into the grand final for B grade,” Nash shared.
“A lot of people ask me what sport I would rather play if I had to give up one and I could not choose. I can’t separate them.”
Most weeks, Nash will play a football game in the morning before quickly recovering to play a netball game later that same day.
“I’ll either play a football game on a Friday night or the Saturday morning and then run straight into a netball game,” Nash said.
“How I balance it is just pure adrenaline. It doesn’t really hit me until I’ve stopped netball in the afternoon.”
Whilst Nash is a standout player in both of her sports, she admits that it can be difficult to shift between each sport and ensure that she adjusts her game style.
“I think the hard thing about it is that if you play football in the morning and you’re running straight into a netball game, it’s like having to switch your mentality and realise you’re not playing football anymore.”
Since Nash plays a defensive role in both her football and netball teams, she has been able to transfer some of her skills between games and become a well-rounded player.
“I find that what football helps me with is that physicality in defence,” Nash said.
“On days when I play football in the morning, I can come into my netball game and sort of hassle my attacker a lot better.”
Nash’s strength as a footballer has boosted her defensive performance on the netball court, but knows that it can be easy to forget about the difference in physicality.
“It’s probably gotten me in trouble a couple of times with the umpires because of how physical I’ve been,” Nash joked.
“I love that defensive side while being on the netball court.”
In her eighth season of netball at the Centrals, Nash and her A Grade side have had a challenging year with only one win so far.
“It’s definitely not been the season that we wanted. It’s been very challenging,” Nash said.
“It’s just setting the mindset that wins aren’t guaranteed, and even if you are losing, there’s no time to drop your head and let the other team overrun you.”
Sitting at ninth on the ladder after Round 9, the Centurions are looking to make an impact in the second half of the season by keeping a positive mindset each week.
“While we’re not winning on the scoreboard, we’re just looking at other ways we can count as wins to keep ourselves positive,” Nash said.
“We lost to Inverleigh the other week by four points but we left that game feeling like we won.”
As the Werribee Centrals approach round ten this weekend, there’s hope that they will secure their second win of the netball season against the winless Geelong West Giants.
Werribee Centrals defeated the Geelong West Giants by 25 points the last time they met.
Now the line-up hopes to replicate the scoreline again.
“I would die for my netball team,” Nash said.
“I would do as much as I can to give my shooters the most opportunities to score and help our team out.”
With both football and netball on her mind, Nash is looking forward to the remainder of the 2026 season and what is yet to come for the Werribee Centrals FNC.
