Susan Pettitt (nee Pratley) is one of the most celebrated netballers of the modern era.
A regional athlete from Bega, who represented NSW at 17U, 19U, 21U and Opens levels before making her elite debut, she was one of the true greats of her time.
A wonderful shooter and one of the shrewdest and most intelligent attackers netball has known, Susan played over 200 National League Games and had a fine international career with the Australian Diamonds.
She started out her elite career with the Sydney Sandpipers and the Canberra Darters, but it was with the Swifts that she really made her name.
Playing alongside Catherine Cox AM - and in a team that included the likes of Elizabeth Ellis AO, Kimberlee Green OAM, Selina Gilsenan and Vanessa Ware - Susan won a historic three-peat with the Swifts when the Sydney Swifts claimed the final two Commonwealth Bank Trophy titles in 2006 and 2007 before the rebranded NSW Swifts won the inaugural ANZ Championship in 2008.
In total she played 161 games for the Swifts winning three Premierships across both the yellow and red eras and played five Grand Finals, making her a proud Centurion of the Foundation Club and one of its greatest-ever athletes.
In 2017, when the ANZ Championship was replaced by Suncorp Super Netball, Susan made the decision to join Netball NSW’s newly formed Club: GIANTS Netball.
She went on to play a huge role in the GIANTS’ debut season, helping them to a Grand Final appearance in their first year as well as a Minor Premiership in 2018. In total she played 33 games for the GIANTS after becoming one of their foundation players.
At international level Susan proved she could match it with the best in the world and her crowning achievement came at the 2007 Netball World Cup in Auckland when she was part of the Diamonds Team that won Gold.
Over the course of her 71 Diamonds appearances, she also won Commonwealth Games Silver and was a stalwart of the national setup for well over a decade. She also contested a number of international Fast5 Series in the green and gold.
Since her retirement Susan has continued to give back to the sport that she loves by coaching and mentoring the next generation of netballers at Clinics which she runs across the State.
She was inducted into the Netball NSW Hall of Fame in 2023.
