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Women's RL's best year ever?

Messages
14,139
Surely. Despite the fact the World Cup organisers have f**ked up the main tournament by only having six teams and including teams with no domestic league over countries that do, this year has been the biggest for women's RL yet.

The Jillaroos have essentially gone pro to some extent and their bigger games have been televised or more widely reported than before. There are a lot more women's clubs, teams, comps and therefore players than ever before.

Canada is competing for the first time and had three provincial teams play in the trials. PNG is also playing for the first time and this includes domestic development. England hasn't progressed much but they have a women's "Super League" now which is something of a positive.

In addition to the WC nations there's also France with a club competition and Fiji with regional teams. Lebanon has four club sides. Italy and Lebanon played two internationals during the year and Lebanon had a heritage team play recently. Turkey has seen some women's development alongside it's men's comp. Now Chile and Argentina are playing an exhibition game as part of the Latino championships.

The next question is what will the RLIF and other major RLs do in the next few years to grow further and support this growth? Canada needs more games. The second tier nations need help to compete. It's annoying that even though we are starting from such a low base that the big three are already dominating and Australia in particular. It was a chance for one part of the game to be competitive or even have some other teams lead the way. It's not too late to get Canada and others up to that level so we have four or five or six teams able to beat each other instead of three. Let's see some planning.
 

The Partisan

Guest
Messages
1,926
Yeah big chance here for administrators to learn from past mistakes. Game has huge potential in the Womens ...which ironically may bolster the Mens's game profile in some areas.

Quite impressed with the games I saw yesterday. Sure there was lopsided results, however all three teams beaten were certainly not guilty of throwing in the towel. Canada especially impressed me.
 

Springs09

Juniors
Messages
1,903
It's great to see.

No reason why there can't be a women's NRL comp up and running soon.

No reason why there can't be equivalent women's international comps running concurrently with the men's.

No reason why women's and men's internationals can't be played on the same ground, same day from now on.

No reason why all these can't be televised.

Apart from our wonderful administration.
 

taipan

Referee
Messages
22,402
Women's rugby league has grown once again at grassroots level.From memory 40 players contracted in Oz.
Female players now appear on football shows such as Sports Sunday and others.
It's also growing in Pommy land.
You get the mums on board, you get future moms of players/admin and officials.
 

siv

First Grade
Messages
6,546
Yes with the cancelling of NRL U20s and NRL RG I cant wait till we see one of the girls step up onto the bench of a NRL team after playing before the main game
 

yakstorm

First Grade
Messages
5,293
You can also throw Spain, Tonga and Samoa into the mix, with the NRL Development Officers setting up girls & women's competitions in the later two.

Russia is planning on getting their Women's competition up and running again next year as well.

All in all, very positive signs for the Women's game... Hopefully as a sport we don't butcher it... The Commonwealth Nines, plus the RLIF writing to the Pacific Games to add a Women's leg to the upcoming event in Samoa are steps in the right direction.
 
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