Women's sport weekly wrap: Help me change our game

Welcome to The Roar’s women’s sport weekly wrap – a space where I’ll introduce you to personalities in women’s sport and share some of the biggest talking points from the past week.

In early October when the NRL season concludes, people always ask me, “so Mary, what are you planning to do over the off-season?” I always joke that rugby league has no off-season and I was reminded of that this week.

One of my favourite moments in women’s sport this week was the announcement of the draw for the Women’s Rugby League World Cup in 2017.

Credit: Narelle Spangher

The Jillaroos are in Pool A along with England and the Cook Islands and I’ll be spending a lot of time at Southern Cross Group Stadium in mid-November 2017 to see the Jillaroos in action on the following days:

• Thursday 16 November against the Cook Islands;
• Sunday 19 November against England; and
• Wednesday 22 November against Canada.

The top two placed teams in each pool will then play each other in the semi-finals on Sunday 26 November with the final to be played on Saturday 2 December at Brisbane Stadium. I hope you’ll all join me in cheering on the Jillaroos.

There’s a lot of positive work being done in this space at the moment. Recently Ruan Sims became the first woman to sign an NRL contract, with the Cronulla Sharks and she was followed by Allana Ferguson and Maddie Studdon.

The Dragons have followed the Sharks lead and announced the formation of their own NRL Nines team. NSWRL has launched a new Under 18’s competition next year, the Tarsha Gale Nines, and names like Kezie Apps and Sammy Bremner are becoming increasingly familiar to rugby league fans.

I’m hoping that the rugby league World Cup in 2017 is the grand finale to a year where we continue to see women playing rugby league gain even more prominence.

Credit: Narelle Spangher

Ellyse Perry – one of Australia’s greatest cricketers

This week marked the conclusion of a four match one-day international series between the Southern Stars and South Africa – with Australia taking the series 4-0.

I’ve spoken about the dominance of the Southern Stars in recent weeks, but also wanted to highlight the individual performance of Ellyse Perry who, earlier this week, batted her way to a fifth straight half century. Not only was Ellyse instrumental in the victory from a batting perspective, she also had figures of 3-52 with ball in hand.

At the moment the current record for consecutive half-centuries is 6. Any guesses who holds that record? That’s right, Ellyse does.

So all eyes will be on her in February when the Southern Stars take on New Zealand to see if she is able to equal her own record. What would be even more exciting would be if Ellyse did it with a century – something that she has not done in her one-day international career despite batting in 60 matches.

Michelle Heyman has the golden touch

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Westfield Matildas player, Michelle Heyman. If I were asked on the street, who is your favourite footballer, I would name her without question.

I am such a big fan of Michelle, that I consider Canberra United to be my equal-favourite W-League team, despite supporting the Wanderers in the A-League.

Michelle is pretty talented on the field and currently holds the record for the most goals scored in the W-League with 57. The next highest goal-scorer is Tameka Butt, who sits on 43. Michelle added to that tally on the weekend with a double against the Newcastle Jets and is finally off the mark with a slow start to goal-scoring across the board in the W-League.

She is also the only player to win the W-League’s golden boot twice and has also been awarded the Julie Dolan medal for the W-League’s best player.

But it’s Michelle’s work off the field which I respect her even more for. Michelle is an openly gay athlete and uses her voice to advocate for people to be confident and accept others for who they are.

Michelle was named as one of the first openly gay athletes for the Women’s World Cup campaign and was the only openly gay athlete in the 2016 Australian Rio Olympic team. In a world where people are increasingly being told to be something they are not, Michelle encourages people to be themselves and I think that’s pretty special.

I was not surprised to see Michelle nominated for Sports Personality of the Year in the Australian LGBTI Awards. She certainly has my vote.

Change her Game

I saved the best until last this week.

This week, the Victorian Government has announced a new campaign called ‘Change Our Game’ which is about encouraging more women to get involved in leadership positions in sport.

This video was part of the launch:

That’s pretty powerful stuff. I got quite emotional seeing the delight on some of the little girls faces when Mel ‘MJ’ Jones walked into the room and the realisation that they too had it in them to become an Australian sporting hero.

It is up to all of us to continue to encourage little girls to get involved in sport and to continue to share stories about athletes like Alex Blackwell, Sharni Leyton, Ruan Sims, Daisy Pearce, Alicia Quirk, Shelley Watts and Jessica Fox.

We all have a role to play in changing our game – whether that game be rugby league, AFL, football, hockey, cricket or basketball.

I encourage you all to be part of it and to be advocates in a rapidly changing Australian sporting landscape.