Madi Browne prefers not to call it retirement, for who can really be sure? The 32-year-old cites the example of her close friend Renae Ingles, who returned for a Suncorp Super Netball encore less than a year after taking - or so it had seemed - a final bow.
“You never say never,’’ says Browne. “Maybe I’ve learnt that from Renae, who was retired and then she was the John Farnham and came back.
“So I guess never say never, but at this current time the right thing for me to do is to step down from this level and then we’ll just see how it goes.’’
Browne’s fourth season with the Magpies and 15th overall at national league level finished prematurely after cartilage damage was confirmed in the right knee wrecked by ACL tears in 2015 and 2019.
Swelling and soreness during the first seven rounds meant that this show, for this resilient superstar, could not go on.
“I don’t want a knee replacement at 40,’’ says Browne, whose father Mark’s AFL career with Geelong was curtailed by chronic knee pain, while sister Kelsey has drawn the curtain on 2020 after a challenging comeback from her own ACL rupture in 2019.
“I just want to get through this phase and have surgery to have everything cleaned up, and see where my body’s at, but I’m kinda open to anything and any opportunities out there that might arise.
“I do want to play netball again, so it was kind of an easy decision to go ‘my body has just said stop. Enough is enough. I’ve given you everything I can. It’s time to respect that’. Yeah, it was the knee that got me in the end.''
Whatever happens from here, the 168-centimetre Browne will be remembered as one of the great midcourters of her generation.
A bold and brilliant national league career started in 2005 with the Melbourne Kestrels, included three more clubs, a 2014 premiership triumph with the Vixens and multiple individual honours over 175 games including an unprecedented two Liz Ellis Diamonds and a sweep of all three major Netball Australia awards in 2012.
Internationally, Commonwealth Games gold and silver medals were the main prizes from 61 Test appearances that could and should have been quite a few more.
Destined for excellence along each step of the Victorian development pathway, the evidence is in the wardrobe; there, in Geelong, Browne has a dress from every representative/elite team she has represented, from state primary school level up.
More junior national championship appearances in the navy blue came almost routinely, with one highlight a trip to Darwin with the 17-and-unders, when Ingles (then Renae Hallinan) was in the 19s.
“We weren’t even in the same team, but later that year we played 21s together and that’s how our friendship blossomed,'' says Browne. “I still love netball, and It’s the friendships and the things you do to build that team culture that I will miss. A lot.
“The amount of messages I’ve had in the past few days from past Australian players, to current players in the league, to people overseas, and people from local communities that I’ve gone and done coaching clinics with… they were like ‘yay, do you want to come and have a game on a Saturday?’
"So It’s been quite funny! I feel like it’s been a bit of a full circle.’’
One that started during a long-ago Kestrels pre-season beach session, when Browne was a young hopeful on the periphery. Starstruck by the presence of the great Shelley O’Donnell, it was her idol’s retirement announcement that same day that opened the door to a place as a training partner in the extended squad of 16.
By Round 1 2006, she was in the 12 to play the powerful Sydney Swifts. Legends Cath Cox and Liz Ellis were the bookends and Diamonds’ wing defence, Selina Gilsenan, Browne’s direct opponent after a shock half-time summons from coach Jane Searle.
“The first ball I took in the pocket, Liz Ellis came out and absolutely pole-axed me, and I was like ‘ok, welcome to the big league. Time for a reality check!’.’’
Two years later, when the Vixens were born from the union of the Kestrels and the Phoenix to represent Victoria in the new trans-Tasman league, another pinch-me moment; winning one of 12 hotly-contested spots alongside the likes of Sharelle McMahon, Natasha Chokljat, Bianca Chatfield, Julie Corletto and Hallinan.
Opportunities were limited, though, and after two years away honing her craft with the West Coast Fever, a fitter, leaner and wiser Browne returned home in 2011 as a far more accomplished and established player and leader.
Debutantes in that second phase included the likes of current co-captains Kate Moloney and Liz Watson, “so I’ve had a front row seat to a lot of incredible careers,'' she says.
“Vixens was such a good place for me to develop and grow. They are so well-drilled and smart and a coach like Simone (McKinnis) just oozes excellence in what she wants out of her players and the way that she played the game.
“Mum joked that she actually played against Simone in a practice match in Geelong and says ‘I think I’m the only wing attack not to have ever touched the ball against Simone McKinnis’. So to then go on to play at Vixens under Simone, Vixens were a very big part of my netball journey.’’
The Fever years allowed her to explore, develop and mature, while missing a level of well-resourced professionalism in Victoria she appreciated more for having left.
“Then Collingwood. To be part of another inaugural team, and to see what it’s like to be under a big banner and a big logo like Collingwood is huge. So all those clubs have been pivotal in shaping who I am and was as an athlete and who I am as a person.’’
In between came the lows of some narrow selection misses, and the two knee reconstructions, but, generally, Browne says she has resisted wondering too often what might have been. Most heartbreaking: the 2015 Netball World Cup in Sydney, when an automatic selection, one of the best in the world, in her prime.
“It hasn’t always been roses and rainbows and lollipops, as they say; it’s been quite a roller-coaster ride, but at the same time I wouldn’t change it, because it’s kind of shaped who I am as a person and as an athlete, as I continue to hopefully play in the future,'' she says.
“I can’t wait to sit down in a couple of weeks, a couple of months, or even a couple of years and look back and go ‘gosh, that was pretty incredible’.’’
Browne jokes that perhaps the injuries have helped to wean her off full-time netball in readiness for the moment that has now come, but will be forever proud and grateful to have played this season alongside little sister Kelsey, while also experiencing sibling life as 'housemates' in the Pies' Queensland hub for the first time away from the Geelong family home.
Next? Maybe a return to teaching. Perhaps opening her own pilates studio. But netball will figure somewhere, somehow.
“I would like to remain in the sport in some capacity, but I also feel like I need a bit of a gap year and take some time away because it has been such a big part of my life,’’ says Browne.
And given that 'retirement' is still a reluctant word, she prefers these; “We’ll just say ‘it’s not goodbye forever, it’s until next time. I’ll see you later. See you soon’.’’
Written by Linda Pearce
