Quick Facts
Biography
Billie Irwin is a former netball player who played for the New Zealand national netball team when it won the 1967 World Netball Championships.
Netball career
Billie Irwin was born on 10 May 1942. She played netball for Rotorua, as one of a formidable defensive pairing with Tilly Vercoe, which was known as "Billie and Tilly". The coach of Rotorua was Taini Jamison and she picked the pair to be in the national team when she became its head coach. Beating Australia 40-34 in its final match, New Zealand won the 1967 world championships in Perth, Australia, its first win in the world championships. Irwin and Vercoe came to be known as "The Black Wall", because of their defense and the colours worn by the team.
The 1967 world championship team was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.