NRLW?

[davi]

Todd Greenberg is reluctant to follow the AFL lead just yet, suggesting the Women's game needs more support from the grassroots level before considering a national competition. I think the NRL has made big improvements to support Women's rugby league though. I remember a Jillaroos suggested on the Footy show 15 years ago that they had no assistance from the NRL, unlike womens rugby league side in NZ who received assistance from New Zealand's rugby league's peak body. I think the way the jillaroos have risen in promince suggests the NRL are making improvements in this area.

"NRL won't rush women's rugby league competition despite AFLW success, Todd Greenberg says


NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg says the code will not be quick to follow in the footsteps of the AFL and launch a national women's competition.

On Friday night the AFL made history when the eight-team competition kicked off in Melbourne, but Greenberg said the NRL was not in a position to follow suit just yet.

"I think in this space we're spending a lot of time and energy on the Jillaroos to make sure our elite female pathway is strong," Greenberg said.

Currently Australia has about 40 elite female rugby league players.

"We have absolute aspirations to introduce more competition pathways for females, but in saying that we want to build from the ground up," Greenberg said.

"I don't want to start a competition without having the substance below it."

Female participation is the fastest-growing area of the game.

As of last year, 482,000 women were involved in playing rugby league, which is a 27 per cent increase on the previous year.

The code has aspirations of introducing a competition by 2020.

"That work is underway but I don't want to be rushed into doing something just because someone else is doing it," he said.

"We need to make sure out pathways are real and sustainable not just because it's topical now."

Greenberg said the league needed to make sure it does not "do things in halves", adding that they needed to grow a larger pool of talent before a competition could succeed.

This weekend the Jillaroos are taking on New Zealand at the Auckland Nines and later in the year the Women's Rugby League World Cup will be held in conjunction with the men's tournament."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-05/nrl-wont-jump-the-gun-on-womens-league-just-yet/8240140

 

[I Bleed Maroon]

We can't even expand the male competition when it's necessary, let alone start a whole new one.

 

[AlwaysGreen]

After one week the AWFUL is a success? Sounds reasonable.

 

[El Diablo]

Todd Greenberg is reluctant to follow the AFL lead just yet

AFL's lead?

Cricket, Soccer and Basketball have been running womens comps and Union women won Gold at the Olympics yet the media think AFL invented women playing sport

 

[East Coast Tiger]

We can downplay the VFL all we like, but the reality is they've taken a chance because they thought it would be a big PR win and probably to help get more government money and sponsorship. So far they've achieved exactly what they wanted. The VFL are destroying the NRL in the PR war and will probably get that government money and sponsorship they are after and the women's comp will pay off massively for them.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of the VFL and their brainwashed zealot fans, they are willing to do almost anything to grow their "sport". They back it with money, resources and policy.

Meanwhile the NRL does almost everything to avoid growing our sport. They make excuses galore for not expanding the NRL, not supporting international growth, not pushing the women's game, not supporting the grassroots. And on top of it all they simply don't promote the game, not anywhere near as well as the VFL does anyway. You'd hardly know the NRL season essentially kicked off this weekend in Auckland, while this women's version of the clusterf**k that is fumbleball is all over the news. The Jilllaroos are nowhere to be seen. And you can't always just blame the media. Even the NRL doing a VFL by totally lying about the number of women playing RL isn't achieving anything.

 

[Perth Red]

Pretty typical, afl create a national women's league, get 20k to first game and a million tv audience. NRL creates a nsw comp. and thinks about doing something more in a few years time just about sums up the difference between the two organisations.

 

[Timmah]

For what it's worth, NSWRL are introducing a Women's U18s Nines competition which starts next weekend, and putting greater resources into the Metropolitan Women's RL comps which start later in the year.

It's similar to how the AFL built up to starting the AFLW - built the strength of the VFL Women's state comp first before making the leap. I'd hope the NRL has that sort of structure in place before introducing an 'NRLW' style comp.

 

[JamesRustle]

We can't even expand the male competition when it's necessary, let alone start a whole new one.

Are you channeling PR?

 

[Panther91-03]

See I would watch aflw cause it is originally a soft girly game and it was made for them unlike the geniused brainwashed men who play it

 

[blaza88z]

I watched the GWS vs Adelaide women's AFL game and fair dinkum, those GWS girls could barely catch the footy, let alone kick it

You want to promote the sport but you also want it to be entertaining

 

[siv]

RL has a ztrong state based comp

Now a U18s

Strong SOO and International program

We just finished a 3 match 9s series for the Jillaroos

Technically they don't need to go national

AFL only pooption is to have a national comp

 

[T-Boon]

I don't think you can just blame the NRL for this typical piss weak cowardly decision to put things off.

There is no way that the clubs are clever enough to understand the reasoning behind supporting a women's game. They would scratch their gorilla heads whilst trying to work out "what's in it for us"? "How is this going to help me win a premiership this year?" "How does this help me get a centre of superduper'ness?".

 

[umina panther]

I wouldn't watch for the same reason I dont watch A-League. The quality would be awful

 

[PARRA_FAN]

If they charged people to come and see Womens AFL, not many would turn up.

As for the Womens RL comp, I like the idea of a 9s comp, but at the moment the State of Origin, All Stars, Trans Tasman and World Cup seems strong enough and can only improve.

 

[Billythekid]

I don't want to jump on the hype bandwagon that is suggesting that the WAFL is a huge success but in some ways it is. It has provided a huge PR boost for the AFL and is getting heaps of talking in the media. Whether it's long term or not is irrelevant, the AFL would already be happy with what the comp has provided.

Even if it's articulate hype it's still working. If you think the talk of the WAFL bring a success is nauseating just wait until it has a massive crowd at the MCG for the grand final.

The BBL in particular has shown that there is a growing taste for women's sport and rugby league risks being left behind. I don't think we should immediately start our own comp but we need to be really looking into it and planning for the future.

 

[insert.pause]

For what it's worth, NSWRL are introducing a Women's U18s Nines competition which starts next weekend, and putting greater resources into the Metropolitan Women's RL comps which start later in the year.

It's similar to how the AFL built up to starting the AFLW - built the strength of the VFL Women's state comp first before making the leap. I'd hope the NRL has that sort of structure in place before introducing an 'NRLW' style comp.

did they? aren't these women's afl teams smaller than regulation AFL & littered with female athletes from other sports who have never even played the game before? seems like tokenism to me, starting up a 'professional' competition without actually having the player pool first. I would have thought that was insulting to women's sport more broadly. Maybe once the novelty wears off and the self-congratulatory PR & gushing has faded and the quality of the so called 'professional competition' is scrutinised on its own merits, questions will be asked about how genuine the motivations were for the AFL in starting up the competition.

 

[Henson Park Hornets]

Lets just wait and see how well the aflw comp is going when the mens comp is up and running, it's the middle of a Melbourne winter. I saw on social media that there was no other sporting events in Melbourne last weekend, the weather was nice (Friday night at least). Plus there's a real nostalgia for games to be played at the clubs traditional homes, sure once the novelty of standing for four hours in the cold will wear off.

Sure it's been a bit of a PR coup for them but it's only been one weekend and all this talk of moving games to bigger stadiums is ridiculous.

I actually think the NRL's approach of building the womens game up via NSW and Qld comps is a more sustainable approach rather than just chucking money at it for the sake of doing because the afl have done it.

 

[Valheru]

What a surprise

Most of the comments in here are deriding the AFL rather than discussing ways we can get to the same stage in terms of a women's comp.

 

[Timmah]

did they? aren't these women's afl teams smaller than regulation AFL & littered with female athletes from other sports who have never even played the game before? seems like tokenism to me, starting up a 'professional' competition without actually having the player pool first. I would have thought that was insulting to women's sport more broadly. Maybe once the novelty wears off and the self-congratulatory PR & gushing has faded and the quality of the so called 'professional competition' is scrutinised on its own merits, questions will be asked about how genuine the motivations were for the AFL in starting up the competition.

Yes, they're smaller than regulation and yes there are some athletes are from other sports.

But yes - at least in Victoria they built from what was already established and the bulk of the players have been playing the game at some level in recent years.

I get the anti-AFL sentiment on here but why question something so strongly when you've failed to do the most basic research about it?

 

[Timmah]

Lets just wait and see how well the aflw comp is going when the mens comp is up and running, it's the middle of a Melbourne winter. I saw on social media that there was no other sporting events in Melbourne last weekend, the weather was nice (Friday night at least). Plus there's a real nostalgia for games to be played at the clubs traditional homes, sure once the novelty of standing for four hours in the cold will wear off.

Sure it's been a bit of a PR coup for them but it's only been one weekend and all this talk of moving games to bigger stadiums is ridiculous.

I actually think the NRL's approach of building the womens game up via NSW and Qld comps is a more sustainable approach rather than just chucking money at it for the sake of doing because the afl have done it.

Oh dear.

- The AFL Women's comp finishes on Saturday March 25 with the Grand Final - it only runs 8 weeks (7 plus GF). It'll barely run into autumn, let alone "the middle of a Melbourne winter". And it's over before every men's team has played its opening fixture.
- No other sporting events last weekend in Melbourne? You must have shit social media. The A-League Melbourne Derby was on at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night. Fairly big sporting event I'd say.
- Games have already been moved, primarily because the original venues chosen were woefull inadequate for crowds of 3-5k, let alone the 24k that turned up to the first one.

As posted above, the AFL actually did do the same thing (in Victoria at least) by building it up before going into a national comp, holding VFL Women's the last couple of years and allowing growth there, as well as several exhibition games. I certainly agree they're chucking money at it but they haven't just done this from scratch, it's been years in the making.

And I think the NRL are being very smart in doing it a similar way. The introduction of the Tarsha Gale 9s and associated Metro Women's comps in NSW, associated QRL comps, and the great profile the Jillaroos have enjoyed the last few years has our code heading in the right direction with this as well. A sustainable approach is definitely the way to go.