EXCLUSIVE: Peter FitzSimons lays blame for netball's moment of 'absolute madness'

Peter FitzSimons has blasted the "incomprehensible error" that saw Super Netball's only indigenous player not get a single minute on court during Indigenous Round on the weekend.

Queensland Firebirds' Jemma Mi Mi has played 383 minutes during the 2020 Super Netball season, but in recent weeks her game-time has reduced. And during Indigenous Round in the Firebirds' 64-58 win over the Melbourne Vixens on Sunday, the 24-year-old did not play. This, despite Mi Mi also being used to widely promote Indigenous Round in the lead-up to the weekend.

Firebirds coach Roselee Jencke appeared to try and get Mi Mi on in the last minute of the game, but the full-time siren sounded before Lara Dunkley, who was kept in as the preferred wing attack, could be replaced. Mi Mi was visibly disappointed courtside and her omission did not go unnoticed by media and fans.

"Lara Dunkley looking across to Jemma Mi Mi," Nine commentator Sue Gaudion said in commentary.

"I know she's only a youngster, but if it was me I'd walk off the court and let Mi Mi come on. Not to be."

FitzSimons was the latest to criticise the unbelievable oversight and he scoffed at the Firebirds' explanation that benching Mi Mi was simply a strategic decision to get a victory against the Vixens.

"The idea that it was a leadership decision, that's what we call [being] throwing under the bus. Really it comes back to the coach and I guess the president of the club," FitzSimons said on Wide World of Sports' Five Minutes of Fitzy.

"Ultimately the coach has to... just say look, you made an error, but it's a bad error, and an incomprehensible error."

FitzSimons argued that the team collectively should have shown more foresight before overlooking Mi Mi, which he described as "absolute madness".

"She's the one person, the one indigenous woman in the whole netball round, and she sits on the bench. The statement by her team was, 'the leadership group decided to leave her out, it was the best thing for the game'.

"You've got to bring them in tight and say, 'Listen, every now and then, some things are more important than who is going to win this match'. You've got to look at this and it will be an embarrassment for netball if she doesn't play. Get her on there, celebrate her, roar of the crowd, standing ovation, you're representing your people in a wonderful Indigenous Round - I mean it's just absolute madness."

FitzSimons has been impressed by the "many leaps and strides" netball has made in the last five years, but he explained that the game is still "playing catch-up" to other sports when it comes to addressing the obvious lack of diversity - particularly of indigenous Australians.

Four percent of players in grassroots netball identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, but in the nation's elite competition there is just one indigenous player - Mi Mi. And at the national team level there has been just two Indigenous players, Marcia Ella-Duncan in the 1980s and Sharon Finnan-White, who retired in 2000.

"Netball, more or less, it's fair to say, are playing catch-up, [and] have sadly only got one player in their whole [competition]," FitzSimons said.

"Sports really have to embrace that concept of inclusiveness to really prosper, to really grab the entire community across the board. You've got to get everybody.

"You've got the indigenous population all over the country. They're very, very sporting people with so many wonderful indigenous athletes, and yet we've had no Diamonds player in the last 20 years, and [just] Gemma Mi Mi [in Super Netball].

"We don't usually apply this to netball, but they dropped the ball, they missed the goal.

"They're going so well across the board, on that one [Mi Mi controversy] they blew it. Next time I bet they'll get it right."