The tyranny of distance in Western Australia has forced the state to play against the spirit of the 2024 First Nations Cup that may have a positive effect on taking out the three-day inaugural netball tournament in Melbourne this weekend.

With the playing squads of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders picked from under-23 talent only, the intent of the First Nations Cup is to discover the next Marcia Ella-Duncan, Sharon Finnan-White or Donnell Wallam, Australia's only past Indigenous national representatives.

However Western Australia coach Josie Jansz-Dawson admitted no players were included in the WA state squad that were participating outside of the Greater Perth region on a regular basis.

Though a number of players named are originally from the bush, they play in the WANL state competition that does not include any players from the far regional expanses of Western Australia outside of nearby associations in Collie, Bunbury or Mandurah.

For the First Nations Cup, organisers also wanted to exclude the few established Indigenous players in the Suncorp Super Netball competition.

This includes Wallam before she departs Queensland Firebirds to link up with New Zealand's top league and the Mi Mi sisters from Sunshine Coast Lightning, a decision based on providing greater opportunities for largely regional players.

"It is always hard because we are such a broad state to have representation from all across," Jansz-Dawson told the National Indigenous Times.

"We have to have better hub set-ups first, so for this team this year because we have had very little time, we did pick a largely very Perth-centric team.

"We expressed that to Netball WA and they really were hesitant to actually agree to doing it this way because they wanted to assure everyone, they did it the right way.

"They didn't want it to be a tokenistic effort and just be like, 'Oh well, there's the nationals on and let's chuck a team together.

"They really did want to support it and do it all in the right manner, and I think it was pushed more from the blackfullas that work either within the organisation or have been involved in netball before that they said, 'You know what? We've been waiting for something like this for so long that any opportunity is the right opportunity'.

"We've said we might not get it right this year, but it has the potential in the coming years to lay down the foundations for what we could be doing with our Indigenous All Stars team, making sure there is a pipeline of First Nations athletes that are feeding into the state league to get into the broader state teams."

Jansz-Dawson, who played nine seasons for West Coast Fever ending in 2016, relocated to Perth a number of years earlier from Derby to advance her playing career.

So, of all people in Netball WA's organisation chain, Jansz-Dawson regrets that in the inaugural First Nations Cup, Western Australia will not have raw representation from the bush.

She said that will change next year when time is on the side of Netball WA after preparations for the tournament that starts on Friday were hastily arranged.

"There are some great talent broader than Perth, and I think it will probably be me being able to set up a system to be able to tap into it, so they don't feel they are missing out altogether," Jansz-Dawson said.

"When I was a junior, I was doing like satellite netball programs, which is essentially, 'Here's a 10-week plan to follow' and it was given to our north-western Derby coach and she had to run the sessions based on what the paperwork was telling her.

"We thought that was really cool because this is what they were doing in Perth and the state, and it was different.

"But I also think that is not going to be the game-changer for regional areas today."

About half the players in the West Australian squad either relocated to Perth to attend school before developing into standout netballers or to later play in the WANL.

So the contribution from regional WA netballers will still be strong and may even give a hardened Western Australia, lavished possibly with more state league experience than their rivals, an edge against the competition.

"The good thing about netball and sport today in WA that the girls we have don't all currently live in those regions, but they still have that tie to those communities and represent those regions," Jansz-Dawson added.

While Western Australia do not apologise to wanting to put out their strongest lineup on the court, Jansz-Dawson said they wanted to stick to netballers that were available for training sessions and had to travel less distance than even the Tasmanians to come together.

In future tournaments she coaches, there is a promise to "look out for all of our blackfullas – not just some".

"It was up to every state to select their own teams and to see how they could best make it fit, but I think we could have put together a team of regional, remote representatives throughout WA, but the sad bit about that we would have very little time to train together," she said.

"Netball is one of those sports that it is about combinations and connections, and really just an understanding the way each other play.

"So you can't just chuck people together and hope the mix works.

"Other state teams were able to pick a broad range of players from around their state a lot more, but I think they were able to have one or two training sessions together.

"The positive for us is that we have been able to have 14 training sessions together until we get to go away and that's been great because it was not only important that we go out and play a good brand of netball, but we used a lot of our time to do team connecting activities."