Maria Folau

Maria Folau, born Solonaima Maria Tuta'ia in Tokoroa on 18 February 1987, is a retired New Zealand netballer who played for the national team, the Silver Ferns. She is the daughter of Samoan migrants and attended Mount Albert Grammar School, where she captained the premier netball team. She played for the New Zealand under 21 side in 2003, helped win the 2005 World Youth Cup in Miami, and made her Silver Ferns debut in 2005 on a tour of Jamaica. Her domestic clubs were the Auckland Diamonds in the National Bank Cup, the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic, the Northern Mystics from 2010 to 2018 and the Adelaide Thunderbirds in Suncorp Super Netball in 2019, when she was the club's leading goal scorer and best and fairest. As a shooter she was known for scoring crucial goals, including in the gold medal match against Australia at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. She won gold at the 2006 and 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2009 World Netball Series, silver at the 2007 World Netball Championships, and played at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and 2019 Netball World Cup. She retired in December 2019 with 150 caps, the second highest in Silver Ferns history.