New NRLW teams: The Australian rugby league landscape changed forever this week with the news that four new teams will be joining the Women’s NRL Premiership for the 2023 season. So let’s quickly run over how we got here and why its emergence has been over 100 years in the making.
For a fledgling competition that has taken more whacks than most during the past few years, news that four new NRLW teams will be joining the Women’s NRL Premiership for the 2023 season is a welcomed boost. If it wasn’t already clear, women’s professional rugby league is here to stay.
The announcement of four new NRLW teams
NRL CEO Andrew Abdo’s announced that the Canberra Raiders, Cronulla Sharks, North Queensland Cowboys and Wests Tigers have all been granted licences for next season. They will join the Brisbane Broncos, Gold Coast Titans, Newcastle Knights, Parramatta Eels, St George Illawarra Dragons and the Sydney Roosters to make a ten team competition in 2023. With every team playing each other once, the new NRLW teams will mean four weeks are added to the competition; totalling nine regular rounds and two weeks of finals – an increase of 30 games across the season.
Women’s rugby league has history
This might not sound like much to some, but it has been an arduous slog for those championing the women’s game in Australia just to get to this point. The first women’s rugby league match played on our shores saw the Metropolitan Blues down the Sydney Reds 21-11 on the 17th of September 1921. The match was played in front of 20,000 plus spectators and the legendary Dally Messenger even put on a kicking exhibition to promote his new football at halftime. Taking such successful early beginnings into account, no one would have envisioned the long battle for respect and recognition that lay ahead.
The game barely existed on any serious level for the next seven decades until the early 1990’s when it started to gain traction with competitions forming in Sydney, Illawarra and the ACT. This proved to be the catalyst for the culmination of the national governing body of the Australian Womens Rugby League (AWRL) in 1993, which sparked a surge of participation and growth in the game at a grassroots and representative level.
The inaugural women’s Test series between Australia and New Zealand was played in 1995, followed by the first Interstate Challenge between NSW and QLD in 1999 (based on residency until 2018 like the early incarnations of the men’s interstate series), the inaugural World Cup was then held in 2000 when New Zealand reigned victorious in a three team competition in England. For all these advancements on a representative level, it would still take 25 years post-AWRL establishment for the game to take the first major step towards professionalism with the overdue creation of NRLW in 2018.
The rise of women’s rugby league
While it is better late than never, the procrastination from NRL powerbrokers robbed another generation of the opportunity to chase their dreams. And it robbed rugby league supporters of quality entertainment. The standard produced from the outset has been undeniable. The skill, athleticism and physicality of the contest has been nothing short of absorbing, with a level of respect and class amongst competitors rarely seen in sport – especially contact sport.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe increased broadcast exposure that comes with expansion is finally affording many NRLW athletes the opportunity to turn fully professional through endorsement deals to subsidise their club contracts. With even more NRLW teams in the pipeline for 2024, we can expect to see more games, more exposure, greater revenue streams, more full time athletes and an even better product in return.
Some will argue this is too many teams too quickly, a conversation also being had in the ever-expanding AFLW competition right now. But the standard arrived very quickly in its inaugural season. The development has exploded before our eyes. More teams and more games in the premier women’s league will further fast-track all that.
Women’s rugby league is being seen and heard; the future looks very bright.
