The Stars have signed exciting defender Remi Kamo for the 2025 ANZ Premiership season.
Brisbane-born Kamo has been with the Queensland Firebirds in the Suncorp Super Netball competition in Australia for the past two seasons.
Kamo was given a taste of what the Stars can offer when the Firebirds played in this year’s pre-season tournament in Ōtaki.
She says the Stars values and fun environment are just what she needs at this stage of her career.
“I lost my enjoyment of netball last year, so I'm looking forward to being in an environment that’s supportive and allows me to be myself and lets me enjoy the sport I love.” Kamo said.
“I really got that sense of feeling welcome and safe and I got to know the team during the pre-season tournament and we learnt a beautiful song together, there were so many moments of feeling a sense of home and belonging which was really nice.”
Kamo is primarily a goal keep, but can also play in the goal defence position and is excited to test herself with a new style of play and learn more about New Zealand’s classic zone defence structure.
“I’ve always traditionally played a one-on-one style of defence. I have good footwork and like to move around my player and confuse the space to open up opportunities to take ball.” Kamo explained.
“When I watched some of the Stars games I felt they had a really dynamic defence end and similarities to me where they created chaos and made it tough for the feeders to see where to place the ball. I’m pretty hopeful I’ll fit in nicely to that dynamic.”
Kamo already has a connection to New Zealand, with her dad being born in the Chatham Islands, with Ngāti Mutunga his iwi and she’ll be eligible to represent New Zealand.
“Unfortunately, dad had quite a difficult upbringing, so moved to Australia when he was quite young and disconnected from his culture. We grew up being aware that is our heritage, but only able to explore it over the past five to ten years, because he wasn’t as open to it before. Kamo said.
“Thankfully I have a half-brother who lives in Christchurch with his family and he’s been big on understanding where our family is from and our connections in New Zealand and done some digging into our ancestry.” Kamo added.
“I’m also really excited to spend some more time with him and even though my brother lives in Christchurch he’ll be supporting the Stars!”
