There were no Queensland State Team caps through her teenage years. No breakthrough moment in Maroon as a junior. In fact, by the start of 2025, Sheppard was seriously considering whether her future in netball had run its course at all.
After missing out so often, the talented midcourter was weighing up a very different direction. Other sporting opportunities were opening. Rugby was demanding more of her attention. The temptation to walk away from netball was real.
“I was going to just have a year off,” Sheppard said. “I was just going to scrap netball and bring out the boots.”
Instead, she stayed.
It is a decision that has changed everything.
A year later, Sheppard’s career has taken off in remarkable fashion.
The Nunukul/Kanolu woman forced her way into the spotlight through a string of outstanding performances, first with the Gold Coast Titans in the HART Premier Netball League Ruby Division, where she was named team MVP, and then on an even bigger stage with Queensland’s First Nations Team at the 2025 First Nations Tournament in Melbourne.
There, Sheppard’s athleticism, composure and consistency helped power Queensland to another strong campaign and earned her major recognition. She was named in the Team of the Tournament and later received the Sharon Finnan-White MVP Award from Netball Queensland for her performances. Her rise continued again when she earned selection in the 2026 Black Swans squad, before being rewarded with a place in the Firebirds Futures squad for this year’s Super Netball Reserves season.
For someone who had been close to stepping away from the game, it has been a dizzying turnaround.
“I just stuck in and I feel like I got rewarded for working hard,” she said.
That perseverance is a defining part of Sheppard’s story, because unlike many of her contemporaries in elite pathways, hers has come with more disappointment than early recognition. She was in the mix through the Queensland pathway system and good enough to make age-group squads, but the final State Team selections always eluded her. Even last year, her progress stopped just short of that final breakthrough when she became a training partner for the 19 and Under program rather than a selected player.
“I didn’t really get further than the squad for the years I was in the state age group,” she said. “Last year, I only got past that stage and got training partner for the 19s.”
For some athletes, repeated near-misses can chip away at confidence. For Sheppard, they became part of the motivation that pushed her to keep showing up.
What helped turn that persistence into momentum was the emergence of a First Nations pathway that gave her not just opportunity, but belonging.
Through Netball Queensland and Netball Australia’s increasingly connected First Nations programs, Sheppard found a culturally safe space that allowed her to keep investing in netball while embracing her identity more deeply. The Queensland First Nations Team experience gave her a new lens on the sport, one where performance and culture could sit side by side and where representation carried a significance beyond results.
“It was a good opportunity to represent my culture as well,” she said.
“It really boosted my confidence.
“I had a good team around me and coaches that supported me and believed in me.”
That confidence has carried directly into the next step of her career. After being named in the Firebirds Futures squad for 2026, Sheppard made her Super Netball Reserves debut in last week’s Round One clash against the Melbourne Mavericks at Nissan Arena - another milestone she had not expected would arrive so quickly.
“I didn’t expect to get picked in the team for the weekend,” she said. “It was a surprise for me.”
Even stepping onto court in that environment felt surreal for a player who had just over12 months ago been contemplating giving the game away.
“It was very nerve-wracking and I’m honoured to get to that stage in my netball career,” she said.
Yet what has become clear in a short space of time is that Sheppard belongs in this company. Her athletic profile, sharpened by her background across multiple sports, and the work she has done in the high-performance environment have already started to lift her game.
“Definitely, the strength and conditioning that Futures provide really improved my game with all the fitness and the gym,” she said.
Now, as the Firebirds Futures prepare for Round Two against the Adelaide Thunderbirds Futures at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Saturday, Sheppard does so as one of the season’s early stories of rapid emergence - not because she came from nowhere, but because she refused to let setbacks define where her netball journey ended.
There is still plenty she wants to achieve, and her goals for the rest of the Super Netball Reserves season are simple: keep learning, keep earning opportunities and keep proving she can belong at this level.
“Hopefully I get more opportunities. I can’t wait to see what Firebirds and Futures can do this year.”
Firebirds Futures Squad vs Thunderbirds Futures
Lily Gribble
Gemma Hutchings
Charlotte Jonsen
Sasha Flegler
Aaliyah Sheppard
Ellie Brice
Elsa Sif Sandholt
Kirra Tappenden
Kaylin van Greunen
Jayden Molo
For Super Netball Reserves scores and results, click here. To watch matches live, visit CODE Sports (subscription required).
