East Coast Tiger
Coach
- 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 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.