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Rugby Australia announce women's competition for 2018

13th December, 2017
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Katrina Barker in action against for Australia against England. (ARU Media)
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13th December, 2017
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Fresh off appointing Raelene Castle as their new chief executive, Rugby Australia has announced a new women’s competition in the 15-a-side format for 2018.

The competition, known as Super W, will run alongside the men’s Super Rugby tournament with five state teams – Queensland, NSW, ACT, and Victoria, as well as Western Australia after the Force were sensationally scrapped from Super Rugby earlier this year.

Until now, women’s rugby in Australia was divided into local and regional competitions, with there being occasional representative opportunities domestically.

Having five teams all located in different states will give the competition a truly national sense, and like other codes who have recently announced competitions, they aren’t rushing into making it bigger than there is the talent for.

Outgoing RA CEO Bill Pulver hailed the decision, saying:

“For a young girl picking up a rugby ball for the first-time next season, she will now have a clear and accessible pathway to represent her country through the Wallaroos and Australian Women’s Sevens team.

“Super W will allow our women’s XVs players the opportunity to play in a high-quality competition, fully entrenched within the professional programs at each state giving them access to elite coaching and high-performance facilities. This will make the Wallaroos a significantly stronger outfit moving forward.”

Women’s sevens co-captain and Wallaroos skipper Shannon Parry also lauded the new competition.

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“I am really proud and excited about this competition launching next year and what this means for the game in Australia,” Parry said.

“Since I started playing rugby in Brisbane the game has come along in leaps and bounds and this competition means that there is opportunity now for all XVs players and sevens players at the elite level.

“It’s going to be great to see Women’s State teams slug it out against each other and will open a lot of girls’ eyes up to the opportunities for them in Rugby.

While sevens rugby has been booming for the Australian national side leading to the establishment of a women’s domestic university competition last year, the new 15-a-side competition will see a much more defined national pathway built to Wallaroos representation.

The Australian national side finished the recent 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup in sixth place, losing the fifth-place play-off 36-24 to Ireland.

The next World Cup slated to be held during 2021 with the hosts still to be decided.

Australia’s sevens side took home the gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics and many of those players are likely to line up in the new competition.

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The announcement from Rugby Australia comes hot on the heels of the NRL announcing their own competition for women just a week ago.

It also means there are now major women’s competitions for all of Australia’s major sporting codes: rugby union and league, cricket (although there is no national four-day competition yet), football and AFL.

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