Eng­land-based T&T goal-shoot­er Saman­tha Wal­lace-Joseph picked up her first in­di­vid­ual award as a mem­ber of three-time win­ners and two-time reign­ing cham­pi­ons Lough­bor­ough Light­ning in the Net­ball Su­per League (NSL) Grand Fi­nal.

This af­ter the 31-year-old To­co-born Wal­lace was named as the Light­ning's "Fans Play­er of the Year" award re­cip­i­ent ahead of their pre­lim­i­nary semi­fi­nal with Man­ches­ter Thun­der at the Sir David Wal­lace Are­na on Sun­day.

The award for Wal­lace-Joseph will al­so come as a great mo­ti­va­tor hav­ing joined the club at the start of the sea­son af­ter part­ing ways with Aus­tralian Sun­corp Net­ball League club New South Wales Swifts in June last year af­ter an eight-year stint.

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

How­ev­er, in March last year, the Aus­tralian net­ball’s gov­ern­ing body in­ves­ti­gat­ed on­line com­ments post­ed by Wal­lace-Joseph that may have breached the sport’s code of con­duct. Wal­lace-Joseph post­ed an­ti-trans sen­ti­ment on her In­sta­gram ac­count, forc­ing Net­ball Aus­tralia and Su­per Net­ball to re­lease a joint state­ment.

She had ear­li­er in the sea­son made a 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 ri­vals Gi­ants on March 28, 2022.

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

Be­fore 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.

Last Fri­day at the Cop­per Box Are­na in Lon­don, Eng­land, in the main semi­fi­nal, Wal­lace-Joseph and the Lough­bor­ough Light­ning, who have won three of the past four Grand Fi­nals, went un­der to Lon­don Pulse in a thrilling 50-49 semi­fi­nal af­ter lead­ing 15-7 at the end of the first quar­ter, and 29-21 at the half-time in­ter­val at the same venue on Fri­day.

In the third pe­ri­od, Pulse outscored Light­ning 14-6 to even up the scores at 35-35 and with five min­utes left in the con­test, Wal­lace-Joseph and her team­mates led 43-41, but goal at­tack Olivia Tchine then held her nerve in the cir­cle with a trio of de­ci­sive su­per shots in the fi­nal five min­utes to edge her team ahead at the fi­nal whis­tle.

With the win, the Lon­don Pulse, who se­cured the top spot at the end of the NSL reg­u­lar sea­son with a 12-2 record and 37 points, fin­ished ahead of Light­ning (10-4) with 32 points and ad­vanced to the Grand Fi­nal where they will meet the win­ner of the Light­ning and Thun­der match on Ju­ly 6.

Al­so on Fri­day, Man­ches­ter Thun­der eased to a 79-49 vic­to­ry over Lon­don Mav­er­icks led by goal at­tack Elmere Van Der Berg's 46 goals while goal shoot­er Paige Reed weighed in with eight.

The Light­ning will start as favourites in the pre­lim­i­nary semi­fi­nal against Thun­der, hav­ing won both reg­u­lar-sea­son meet­ings by dou­ble-fig­ures.

When both teams met in Rund One, El­la Clarke tal­lied 39 goals and Berri Neil 15 in the ab­sence of Wal­lace-Joseph to lead the Light­ning to a 66-52 win, with Van Der Berg scor­ing a team-high 27.

Round Eight, Wal­lace-Joseph who has scored 272 goals on the sea­son from 374 at­tempts, made her pres­ence felt with 23 goals in their 65-53 tri­umph with Van Der Berg scor­ing 27 in the loss.