NRL players walk into jobs when they retire but it’s totally different for women. Queensland coach Tahnee Norris lifts the lid on the hypocritical treatment female coaches get.
Pam Whaley
August 14, 2023 - 6:00AM
Times are changing but there are still moments that make Tahnee Norris very aware that she’s a woman coaching rugby league, not just a rugby league coach.
For instance, during State of Origin camp this year, the Queensland women’s coach walked into a stadium and the groundskeeper addressed the male coaching staff with an update instead of her.
It would be a simple mistake if these acts of casual sexism didn’t happen all the time. It’s the assumption being that men are head coaches and women are there to support them.
“These little things happen all the time, they’re all similar,” she says. “I’ve got male assistants and there’s a mutual respect between us and they’re good blokes, so they’re the first ones to turn around and go, ‘no, that’s the coach there'. But the assumption is usually that one of the male coaches is the women’s Origin coach.”
It’s an attitude that will take time to change, but Norris can already see how far the game has come.
GETTING BETTER NOT BITTER
Norris retired as the most-capped Jillaroos player in history, with 32 games for her country (her record still stands).
But it still wasn’t as easy as walking into an opportunity in rugby league coaching. Once the Australian skipper retired in 2013, she went into a strength and conditioning role under Steve Folkes, who was the women’s coach at the time.
Norris wanted to give back to the game that she loves so much, but when it came to representative coaching she found nothing but closed doors when she was looking for any small opportunity.
“I had to say to myself, ‘how do I get better, not bitter’ about missing out on opportunities,” she says. "I did a lot of stuff myself to try and work on how I could be a better coach, not only in the rugby league sense, but to develop players and get that connection with the playing group as well. I was lucky enough to be involved in a female coach program with the AIS, with some other retired athletes, who were pretty much dealing with the same sort of struggles that I’d been through with missing opportunities.”
It wasn’t about complaining. They wanted to get better.
At the time Norris was coming off a 15-year playing career at the top of her sport and still wasn’t taken seriously enough for someone to give her a chance.
“It was an experience thing, I was told originally. And I struggle with that concept. I’ve always worked in high performance sport. I found that really hard to take at times when you’d see guys that had just finished their NRL career step into coaching roles straight away,” she says.
“But I can’t sit there and get bitter about it. So I got in at the Queensland Cup level with the Burleigh Bears (women’s side) and we won six out of those seven premierships. By then I felt like I had enough runs on the board to put myself out there as a coach at the top level.”
CHANGING THE PATHWAYS
Those early struggles have given Norris a unique perspective in her full-time role with Queensland Rugby League. On top of Origin coaching, she is responsible for strengthening female pathways and development across the state.
“Getting the Origin gig was massive for me,” she says. "There’s been some big changes at the QRL too and there’s a lot of support internally that’s changed how they think about the women’s game."
“That’s been a really big catalyst for the amount of female coaches that are now coming through Queensland that we can support on their journeys as well. There’s also been respect from the men’s space to enable that to happen.”
Elite female players now have more of an opportunity to step into assistant coaching roles, like Meg Ward with the Broncos and the Dragons.
And Norris believes those kinds of opportunities, as well as support from clubs and male coaches within the game, will turn the tide quicker over coming years.
Right now Gold Coast’s Karyn Murphy is the only female head coach in the NRLW, but there are seven female assistant coaches this year, up from three last year.
“You’ve got to give them a foot in the door so that they can get the experience at that level,” she says. "It’s still common for NRL players to step straight into coaching once they retire but now it’s about understanding that women are doing it too and need that opportunity.”
WHY IT’S WORTH IT
For all the tough moments, there are faith-affirming ones too. One in particular stands out for Norris after the 2021 NRLW grand final in Redcliffe.
“I remember walking back to my car, and there were three generations of a family walking back at the same time,” she says. “It was the young son, the father and the grandfather. They weren’t going to watch a family member or anyone they knew, they just went to go and see a really good game of footy and it just happened to be the women’s game."
"That sort of stuff gives me goosebumps. That’s the change that excites me the most. If we can get that into the coaching ranks as well; that it doesn’t matter if you’re a woman coaching an NRLW team or an Origin side or the Australian side, it’s just whoever is best fit for that role and it just might happen to be a woman.”
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