Following the dissolving of the trans-Tasman ANZ Championship competition in 2016, Netball Australia announced the creation of a new national Netball league, which would feature the five original Australian teams and three additional teams. In May 2016, Netball Australia confirmed that Netball NSW was one of three preferred license holders for the new teams. Giants Netball made their first stride as a professional sporting club when they announced former assistant coach of the Australia national team Julie Fitzgerald as the inaugural head coach of the team. The club then began assembling a strong squad over the coming months, a process which culminated in the appointment of Kimberlee Green as captain, a player with 72 national team caps.
2017-20: Successive finals
The 2017 Suncorp Super Netball season saw the debut of Giants Netball. The club was struck with a season-ending injury to captain Kimberlee Green in the early part of the season. Green was later replaced by Sarah Wall. Despite this setback, the Giants would finish third at the end of the regular season, winning ten of their fourteen games and defeating each of the other seven teams in the competition. They then defeated Collingwood and Melbourne Vixens in successive finals before falling well short in the Grand Final to Sunshine Coast Lightning. The following season the Giants finished first on the regular season ladder and won the minor premiership, though they crashed out the finals series in straight sets. Serena Guthrie, Rebecca Bulley and Susan Pettitt all departed the club at the end of the season, with Bulley and Pettitt retiring from the game and Guthrie returning to play in England. The following season saw major transition, with the club signing Diamonds captain Caitlin Bassett but narrowly missing out on finals. Inaugural captain Kimberlee Green announced her retirement after 17 seasons in elite competition. The club moved home matches to the newly redeveloped Ken Rosewall Arena in the 2020 season.
Players
Competitive record
Venues
Giants Netball play all but one regular season home matches at the 10,500 seat Ken Rosewall Arena, located in the Olympic Park precinct. The arena underwent a redevelopment prior to the 2020 season to accommodate netball matches. Since its inception the club has played one home match at the AIS Arena in Canberra. Prior to 2020 the club split home matches between the Qudos Bank Arena and State Sports Centre. The Giants training facilities are also located in the Olympic Park at the Netball Central facility and at the WestConnex Centre, which is shared with the club's AFL teams.
ANL team
For the first three years, the team was affiliated with a reserves team, known as the Canberra Giants, based in both the cities of Canberra and in Sydney, in the second-tier Australian Netball League. The team partially acted as a development squad beneath the senior team and was established in 2017, replacing the Canberra Darters which were the region's former ANL team. The squad comprised a mixture of Giants Netball training partners and elite netball talent based in the Australian Capital Territory. In late 2019, Netball ACT scrapped the affiliation with the Giants and established their own stand-alone team. Following the departure with Netball ACT, the club announced the creation of the Giants Netball Academy. Up to 20 athletes will form the Academy and the club will draw on those athletes to field sides in the Netball NSW Premier League and the Australian Netball League.
