Hannah Mundy’s first, very vivid, netball memory involves blood, an ambulance and six stitches for a head wound.
She wasn’t even playing. Her famous mum, Shelley O’Donnell, was.
The drama took place high in the stand at the State Netball Centre back in 2003, when Hannah was a toddler attending a Melbourne Kestrels national league game with her dad, Lee.
The adventurous two-year-old climbed onto a folding seat. When it snapped back up, her head sliced open in the fall.
Oh, the commotion, as she was carted off to hospital. All these years later, Hannah can see and hear it clearly, still.
Now 19, she has since returned to netball’s traditional home many times - without incident, happily - and was recently one of five Victorians named in the Australian 21/under squad from which the next World Youth Cup (WYC) team will be chosen.
A product of the state pathway, Mundy has represented Victoria at junior level, played in a Bupa Victorian Netball League (VNL) 19/U premiership for Boroondara Express, and last year made an injury-interrupted Deakin University Australian Netball League (DUANL) debut with the Victorian Fury.
Yet, while the obvious next line would be to suggest that it is Shelley who is the spectator now, that is overlooking one small detail: at the age of 53, the triple world champion, 1998 Commonwealth Games gold medallist and 80-Test Diamond would, if not for COVID, still be playing in 2020.
Just a few years ago she made a last-minute guest appearance for Hannah’s rep team, "Oh Hannah, we need you, and can you bring your Mum as well?" was the surprise SOS. Then in 2018, despite a 34-year age gap, the 172cm mother and her 180cm daughter shared the Sorrento A-Grade team’s midcourt.
“It was awesome,’’ says O’Donnell. “It was amazing that I could still get out there and play on asphalt in my 50s, and to play with Hannah and also be able to get her to do all the work!
“I was really just taking the centre passes and making her do all the drives, but it was nice just to get out there and direct her, knowing what she can do, and what her limitations are as well, rather than just watching from the sidelines.
“She’s a different player to me. She plays my position, but I’m not sure there’s any other similarities. She’s very strong and I was very strong, so she’s built really well, but she plays a different style because she’s very tall and she’s got length in her stride.
“So I might have been a bit quicker, quicker feet, but I’ve noticed she’s got great timing and really good strong hands.’’
Personality-wise, Hannah is the quieter one, joking, “yeah, well, that wouldn’t be hard!’’, as she describes a mother who is usually the last to leave a function and typically the loudest person there.
Fiercely competitive, Shelley was also her daughter’s first coach, from when she started with a group of year three pals for Surrey Park until bigger things beckoned six years later.
It was not always easy. “My friends loved her. But me, not so much,’’ says a player both agree was a little harshly done by, because yelling at other people’s kids was just not done.
As for some of the car rides home over the years? Tense? “Yep,’’ says Hannah. “To say the least!’’
Yet if she is better at accepting feedback these days, and confesses that having a mother who excelled at the highest level has inspired her own Diamonds’ ambitions, then the benefit of having her father’s surname has shielded Mundy from the burden that can come with playing the same sport as a champion parent.
At last year's 21s camp at the AIS, when the C/WA was called away for an interview with Macy Gardner (daughter of her Queensland Firebirds coach, Roselee Jencke) and Latika Tombs (GIANTS training partner and offspring of another former Diamonds great, Carissa Dalwood), a few other squad members asked why.
Oh, it’s just about their mums, was the explanation. Mums? Their mums played? Oh. Ok.
“It’s really refreshing that we’re not recognised as ‘the daughter of blah, blah, blah’,’’ says Hannah. “Because of the last name, a lot of my teammates - and coaches - probably didn’t know - although they probably know now.
“I’m happy for it to be known, but it’s not what I want to define me, in a way. I do want to be my own self. I’m proud of what she’s done. But now it’s my turn.’’
O’Donnell is surprised to hear of a pride she says has never been acknowledged directly and, while much competitive banter goes on inside the family home, she senses a greater appreciation for her own achievements since Hannah made her first state team at 17/U level.
Shelley did not even try out until she was 19, when the pathway was less defined, but never looked back after her 21/U selection; picked, next, for the inaugural World Youth Cup triumph in 1988, and going on to play in senior World Championship wins in 1991, 1995 and 1999.
“I had no idea there was anything beyond the state under 21s,’’ she laughs. “Whereas now at 13 you’re in a zone academy and you can say ‘I’d love to play for the Vixens one day. I’d love to be a Diamond one day.’
“Hannah’s just loving every moment, and you can never say that you’re going to go any further than the present, so you just enjoy the present, and presently she’s sitting nicely in the 21s squad.’’
But, with Melbourne still in lockdown, the talented teenager is also without anywhere to play, and badly missing a sport she has loved since a childhood spent with her coach/mum at so many netball courts, from NetSetGO upwards.
From here, Hannah hopes she can perform well at the 21s camp (whenever it goes ahead) to press her WYC selection claims, then ideally earn a role as a Super Netball training partner. Hopefully even, one day, play for the Vixens, but any opportunity will do.
So a final word from Joyce Brown, who coached O’Donnell, Jencke and Dalwood to that famous triumph in Sydney in 1991; “Some of the genes have come through after all! We want to keep those names coming - although the names have changed a bit, which is a bit of a blow.’’
Written by Linda Pearce
