Born Subiaco WA
10 April 1949
After under-age and open competition in State swimming, tennis and netball, Elsma Merillo (nee Harris) emerged as one of Australia’s leading netballers.
A member of WA’s successful teams in the 1960s and 70s, she was first selected for WA’s senior team in 1965, aged 16 and earned national selection after that year’s Australian championships in Hobart. Netball’s age rules prevented her touring New Zealand.
Elsma captained WA to the 1974 national championships title and earned Australian “All Star” selection five times from 1965-70.
As goal attack or goal shooter, she was an integral member of the Australian team that was runner-up at the 1967 world championships in Perth and the successful team in Jamaica in 1971. Originally name vice-captain for the 1969 series with New Zealand, Elsma captained the side in two Tests, with a series drawn.
She married Australian Rules footballer Joe Merillo just before the Jamaican world championships and retired soon after to start a family. She made a comeback in 1974, captaining WA to victory in the national championships in Perth and in a second comeback – after the birth of her second child – she led WA to third place in the 1979 national championships in Melbourne.
Elsma was a member and captain of numerous premiership teams in the WA netball competition, playing with Royals, Bedford and Concords. In 1979, the final year of her career at age 30, she won the A1-grade fairest and best award and captained Concords to the premiership.
Elsma enjoyed an extensive coaching career that included State schoolgirls and WA under-age teams, national squads, WAIS and WA teams, WA Netball League premiers and the Australian B side on a 1992 New Zealand tour.
A physical education teacher and lecturer in human movement Elsma was the University of WA’s Sportsman of the Year in 1969 and in 1989 became the inaugural administrator of the WA Netball League.