Netball Super League | Jade Clarke – Featured Player of the Week

Jade Clarke is making her welcome return to the Vitality Netball Superleague after five years overseas in Australia and New Zealand. Not only has Clarke been extremely successful domestically, she has been an integral member of the England national team since 2003, making her senior debut against New Zealand.

She’s now just five caps away from equalling the record number of appearances for an England player!

During her international career so far, Clarke has competed in a number of international competitions, has won two World Netball Championship Bronze medals and also took the 2011 FastNet World Netball Series Gold Medal with England as captain.

She was named as the captain of England after the retirement of Karen Atkinson after the 2011 Netball World Championships. Her long and illustrious career was rewarded with being inducted into the England Netball Hall of Fame in September 2014.

After playing four seasons of domestic netball for Loughborough Lightning, Clarke switched to Northern Thunder for the 2009/10 season. The following season saw Clarke travel to the other side of the world to play in the Australasian ANZ Championships.

Initially, Clarke was bought in to New Zealand–based team the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic, as a Temporary Replacement Player for injured midcourter Peta Scholz.

After making an impact in the world-famous league, she signed on to play for the NZ Franchise, Northern Mystics in 2012. She later signed with the Mainland Tactix for the 2013 season and after two seasons with them, Clarke joined the Sydney based NSW Swifts as their import player.

She had a dream debut season with NSW Swifts, making herself a regular starter, winning the MVP award in a game against her former side, Tactix.

To cap it all off, Clarke helped Swifts make it to the Grand Final of the ANZ Championship, narrowly losing 56-57 against Queensland Firebirds.

After this closely-fought match, followed by World Cup Bronze with England in the summer of 2015, it was confirmed that Clarke had resigned for Loughborough Lightning for the 2016 Vitality Netball Superleague season as their captain.