T&T net­baller Saman­tha Wal­lace-Joseph was named "Play­er of the Match" as her Lough­bor­ough Light­ning top­pled last sea­son's dom­i­nant force, Lon­don Pulse, 18-17 in the eight-team Eng­land Net­ball Su­per League Soft & Gen­tle Su­per Cup fi­nal as the new cam­paign got off to a thrilling start.

The 32-year-old Wal­lace-Joseph was very in­stru­men­tal in her team's tri­umph and was even­tu­al­ly named 'Play­er of the Match' af­ter she main­tained an 81.25% Amex Su­per Shot ac­cu­ra­cy and bagged 13 Amex Su­per Shots across the day.

De­posed by Pulse as Net­ball Su­per League (NSL) cham­pi­ons in the Grand Fi­nal last Ju­ly, Light­ning flipped the ta­bles on their ri­vals, who be­gan a dom­i­nant 2025 by win­ning this event 12 months ago.

On Sat­ur­day, Lough­bor­ough Light­ning bat­tled past Not­ting­ham For­est 23-21 in their open­ing match at the Utili­ta Are­na, while Lex­is­nex­is Drag­ons scorched Birm­ing­ham Pan­thers 18-6 and in Group Two, NIC Leeds Rhi­nos de­feat­ed AO Man­ches­ter Thun­der 16-9 and Lon­don Pulse topped Lon­don Mav­er­icks 15-8.

In Round Two, Lough­bor­ough Light­ning had an­oth­er close bat­tle be­fore ek­ing out an 18-15 tri­umph over Lex­is­nex­is Drag­ons, while Not­ting­ham For­est edged Birm­ing­ham Pan­thers 14-12, and in Group Two, Lon­don Pulse over­came AO Man­ches­ter Thun­der 22-13, and Lon­don Mav­er­icks and NIC Leeds Rhi­nos drew 13-13.

And in their fi­nal round-robin fix­tures, in Round Three, Lough­bor­ough Light­ning won an­oth­er close clash, 21-18 over Birm­ing­ham Pan­thers, while Lex­is­nex­is Drag­ons topped Not­ting­ham For­est 16-9, and in Group Two, Lon­don Mav­er­icks out­played AO Man­ches­ter Thun­der 19-8 and Lon­don Pulse pipped NIC Leeds Rhi­nos 13-12.

In the semi­fi­nals, the Lough­bor­ough Light­ning then de­feat­ed NIC Leeds Rhi­nos 13-9, while Lon­don Pulse beat Lex­is­nex­is Drag­ons 18-16 to set up their ti­tle-de­cider, which Wal­lace-Joseph and her club­mates won, by the nar­row­est of mar­gins, 18-17.

Head coach of the Light­ning, Vic Burgess, speak­ing to BBC Sport af­ter her team's vic­to­ry in the fi­nal of the 14-minute match­es, said: "It's been a re­al­ly good day from us. We came in­to this know­ing it's a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent. It can be tough and it can be quick, and Pulse near­ly caught us.

"I'm re­al­ly proud of the girls. They were up for it. They were chilled but with a fo­cus on do­ing well for each oth­er. The girls love win­ning and I love win­ning."

The 14-minute match­es are far re­moved from the usu­al 60-minute games but it was a strong form guide last year when Pulse took the spoils and went on to tri­umph in the NSL for the first time.

Light­ning co-cap­tain Nat Pana­gar­ry said there had been a sense of "feel­ing sor­ry for your­self" af­ter last year's Grand Fi­nal de­feat, fu­elling Sat­ur­day's win.

Leeds Rhi­nos and Cardiff-based Drag­ons oc­cu­pied the bot­tom two spots in the NSL last sea­son but both reached the se­mi-fi­nals here and looked re­vi­talised.

How­ev­er, Not­ting­ham For­est, prepar­ing for a sec­ond sea­son as a Net­ball Su­per League club, fell in the group stage af­ter de­feats by Lough­bor­ough and Drag­ons.

The Toc-born Wal­lace-Joseph will start her sec­ond sea­son with the three-time Eng­land Net­ball Su­per League cham­pi­ons Lough­bor­ough Light­ning on Sat­ur­day against the Drag­ons.

Last year, Wal­lace-Joseph con­clud­ed her first sea­son with the Lough­bor­ough Light­ning, play­ing in 11 of the team’s 14 match­es and scor­ing 272 goals at 91 per cent ac­cu­ra­cy as they end­ed as run­ners-up to Lon­don Pulse, and miss­ing out on adding to their pre­vi­ous ti­tle wins in 2021, 2023 and 2024

For Wal­lace-Joseph, the re­turn to the Eng­lish Net­ball Su­per League last year marked her first since she part­ed ways with the Sun­corp Net­ball League club New South Wales Swifts of Aus­tralia fol­low­ing an eight-year stint af­ter one sea­son with the then-Hert­ford­shire Mav­er­icks.

Dur­ing her time with the Swifts, whom she joined in 2017, Wal­lace-Joseph played 84 games and won pre­mier­ships in 2019 and 2021, scor­ing 2,916 goals, in­clu­sive of 82 su­per shots.

In 20024, she made a wel­come re­turn to ac­tion for the Swifts af­ter two years out through in­jury af­ter she suf­fered a sea­son-end­ing torn an­te­ri­or cru­ci­ate lig­a­ment (ACL) in­jury when her Swifts be­gan de­fence of their 2021 ti­tle in the open­ing round of the Sun­corp Aus­tralian Su­per Net­ball against lo­cal ri­vals Gi­ants on March 28, 2022.

A three-time NSW Swifts “Most Valu­able Play­er” (MVP) award re­cip­i­ent, Wal­lace was al­so a 2019 Grand Fi­nal MVP and played a star­ring role in two Swifts Pre­mier­ship-win­ning cam­paigns (2019 & 2021).

Pri­or to join­ing the Swifts, T&T net­baller was an “MVP” win­ner in the Eng­land Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball League with Hert­ford­shire Mav­er­icks in 2016, for whom she scored 438 goals from 491 at­tempts in her lone sea­son, sec­ond on­ly to Storm’s Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Rachel Dunn’s 474 goals from 560 at­tempts.

She was al­so vot­ed the Mav­er­icks’ “MVP”, “Fans Favourite”, and “Coach­es Award” win­ner all in her first and on­ly sea­son with the club.