A Tongala sports star and his English-born Super League netball fiancée have returned to the United Kingdom after enjoying a flying trip to Australia to spend Christmas with their families.
Corey Nexhip and Elle McDonald (they became engaged in September last year) landed back in Cardiff, Wales a week or so ago after three weeks down under.
Nexhip, who was crowned Campaspe Shire’s sportsman of the year only a few years ago, relocated to the United Kingdom with McDonald in December 2022.
His fiancée’s name will not be new to Goulburn Valley League netball followers — she was a star with Seymour in a premiership-winning year.
They lived in Leeds until the middle of 2023, where McDonald was a mid-court player with National Super League team Leeds Rhinos and also a member of the England Vitality Roses (the national team).
“We moved in with Elle’s aunty and uncle, near Nottingham, for the second half of 2023, once Elle’s season with the Rhinos had finished,” he said.
Now 30, McDonald’s season with the Cardiff Dragons saw her play mostly in the centre for the team, which finished eighth in the 10-club competition with a 6-10 record (and two draws).
McDonald was born in Leigh, Greater Manchester, and moved to Australia when she was eight years old.
McDonald’s immediate family and her grandparents live in Melbourne, along with a number of uncles, aunties and cousins. Nexhip’s family remains on a property at Koyuga.
As an eight-year-old, McDonald moved from the UK to Australia, with her family, becoming a part of the Netball Victoria Pathway where she was eventually afforded the opportunity to play for Victorian Fury in the Australian National League in 2019.
A year later she moved up to the Melbourne Vixens in the Suncorp Super Netball league, starting as a training partner before being elevated to the main squad in 2020.
She then switched to the Adelaide Thunderbirds where she spent two seasons before making the decision to return to England and join Leeds Rhinos ahead of the 2023 Netball Super League season.
In September 2022 she made herself available to the England program and was invited to train with the Vitality Roses and Future Roses, competing in the Fast5 Netball World Series in New Zealand before then making her Vitality Roses debut in the final game of the Vitality Netball International Series against Jamaica in January 2023.
Off the court, McDonald is a qualified health and physical education teacher.
Nexhip and McDonald actually met at the end of 2016 when they both trialled for the Victorian Mixed Open Netball side.
They flew back to Australia for Christmas, but it was a working holiday for Nexhip.
The La Trobe University podiatry graduate did some casual work for GV Health, in the High-Risk Foot Clinic, and also caught up with some of his former teammates at Tongala pre-season training. He previously spent a year and a half working with the residents at Warramunda Village, through his connection to Foot Savvy Podiatry, mainly in 2020.
“I’m on a three-year visa, which allows me to live and work in the UK,” Nexhip said.
“I am working full-time at ACE Feet In Motion, which has a major sports focus including 3D running analysis.
“We have a number of partnerships with some top sports teams across Cardiff.”
The couple’s return to Australia was payback for the visit of his parents, Barry and Glenys, in 2023.
“We’re really hoping they will visit again in 2025. Maybe if Dylan (his elder brother, by four years) is ever over here playing netball that will be motivation,” he said.
His younger sister, Abbey, has done some European travel and spent time with the sporting couple in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
Two years after moving to the UK, Nexhip is now back playing regular Aussie rules, albeit a modified version of the sport.
Nexhip played his last game of football in Australia was as a member of Tongala’s losing semi-final team in 2022, but football does remain on his radar.
Nexhip played his first senior game as an 18-year-old for Tongala in 2012, notching more than 200 club games before departing overseas.
“I’ve found a team in Cardiff that plays a nine-a-side version of Aussie Rules. We are known as the Cardiff Panthers and play teams within a 90-minute radius of Cardiff,” he said.
“We also play in a national league where we play Manchester and Nottingham – there are a few Aussies in those teams. There is a bigger AFL league in London, but I don’t plan on travelling there to play.”
McDonald has another two seasons to run on her contract with the Cardiff Dragons, who are expected to be big improvers in 2025.
“They had a strong finish to the 2024 season and have some new additions to the team for this year. The NSL has adopted the supershot, so it is hard to know how much the super shot will impact the competition,” Nexhip said.
Nexhip hasn’t always been on the sidelines to support his fiancé, the podiatry business were he is employed is a major sponsor of the Dragons and Wales Netball.
The third-generation family clinic is operated by three siblings and also works with Cardiff City Football Club and Welsh Athletics.
He has also been called on a few times to train and umpire with the Dragons, having a strong pedigree in netball himself.
Dylan is the captain of the Australian Kelpies, the national men’s netball team. He was a key member of Netball New South Wales’ 2022 men’s national championship team, is head coach of North Shore United and in October was named assistant coach of Sydney Swifts for this season.
He coached Tongala A-grade as a 21-year-old before moving to Melbourne in 2015.
There is no talk just yet of McDonald and Nexhip returning to Australia, although a call-up to the Suncorp Super Netball competition would be welcomed by both parties.
They have, however, taken advantage of the proximity of some of the world’s great sights — having ridden camels in the Sahara Desert and visited Madeira Island and the Greek Islands.