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A look back at the inaugural NRL Women's Premiership season

Roar Guru
2nd October, 2018
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Roar Guru
2nd October, 2018
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This time last month, no one knew what to expect in the inaugural season of the NRL Women’s Premiership.

What we did know was that there would be four clubs to start off with – the Brisbane Broncos, New Zealand Warriors, St George Illawarra Dragons and Sydney Roosters.

Geography was a major factor in the decision to grant those four clubs a provisional licence, and it was obvious that the Broncos and Warriors were going to load their playing squads with the best players from Queensland and New Zealand, respectively.

The best players from New South Wales were going to be split between the Roosters and Dragons, who many could say represent the northern and southern halves of the state.

The Dragons were quick to snap up locals Kezie Apps and Sam Bremner as club ambassadors, while Queensland Maroons captain Karina Brown, who was touted as a potential Broncos skipper, ended up signing with the Roosters instead.

While the four clubs spent months building their lists, the fixture remained an uncertainty, as the only thing we knew was that the matches would be played as curtain-raisers to the men’s finals matches.

Once the men’s regular season came to an end, and the finals fixture was released, that’s when we knew who would play who in the first week of the tournament.

With the Broncos hosting the Dragons in a men’s elimination final, it made sense for their women’s counterparts to face each other in the curtain raiser; that left the Roosters and Warriors to face off at ANZ Stadium prior to the men’s clash between the Panthers and Warriors.

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Broncos NRLW

The Broncos celebrate their win over the Rosters (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

And so, the inaugural NRL Women’s Premiership season got underway.

Sixteen years after their men’s sides met in a grand final at the same venue, the Roosters and Warriors created history contesting the first professional women’s rugby league match in Australia. It was the Kiwi-based side that drew first blood, upsetting the highly-fancied Chooks by 10-4 with Hilda Mariu entering the record books as the first ever try-scorer in the league.

The other match saw the Broncos, fresh off a trial match win over the Papua New Guinea Orchids, defeat the Dragons by 30-4 in front of a healthy crowd at Suncorp Stadium.

In such a short space of time, the northerners, coached by Paul Dyer, would set the benchmark for the league, winning each of their three round robin matches and then going on to beat the Sydney Roosters by 34-12 in the grand final.

Unknowns such as Julia Robinson, who only took up the sport some five or six months ago, Kimiora Nati, who won the Karyn Murphy Medal for best-on-ground, and captain Ali Brigginshaw, among others, have now become household names.

They’ll forever go down in history as being part of the Brisbane Broncos team that’s won the inaugural NRL Women’s Premiership.

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It also saw the club’s trophy cabinet expanded for the first time since 2006, when their men’s side won the most recent of their six titles at the expense of a Melbourne Storm side which no-one knew at the time had been illegally assembled.

The Roosters had only qualified for the grand final after beating the Dragons by 26-0 in the NRLW’s first Sydney Derby, but it had become clear they were on the back foot, having struggled to get anything going in the first two rounds.

New South Wales centre Isabelle Kelly, who was named her state’s best in their Origin win over Queensland in June, was their lone try-scorer in their first two matches, but the side learnt how to “spread the love”, so to speak, scoring six tries in their big win over the Dragons, a result which sentenced their southern rivals to the wooden spoon.

While a mostly-inexperienced Dragons side finished last on percentage, it wasn’t all that bad when you consider some of the talent in the side.

Club ambassadors Kezie Apps and Sam Bremner (who only played one match due to a foot injury) aside, centre Jessica Sergis, who is the girlfriend of men’s centre Zac Lomax, emerged as a player to watch in future years and deservedly took out the Rookie of the Year award.

On her 21st birthday, Sergis played the match of her life as the Dragons beat the Warriors by 22-10 in Round 2, scoring a try and saving two others as the side showed their full potential.

Jessica Sergis for the Dragons in the NRLW

Apii Nicholls of the Warriors is tackled by Jessica Sergis of the Dragons (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

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The club will be the most heavily-represented in the Jillaroos squad, with seven players (Apps, Bremner, Sergis, Hannah Southwell, Holli Wheeler, Annette Brander and Keeley Davis) named to face the Kiwi Ferns in a Test match next Saturday. The two Grand Final teams, the Broncos (six) and Roosters (five), will supply the other eleven players.

As expected, the New Zealand Warriors, which finished third after losing their final two matches by heavy margins, dominate the Kiwi Ferns squad, supplying nine players, with the Broncos next on seven.

The Test match will bring to an end the busiest year yet for women’s rugby league, which also saw the first women’s State of Origin match to be played under this banner.

Back on topic to finish off, and the performances of many of the players in the inaugural NRL Women’s Premiership will no doubt inspire many young girls to eventually play the sport in the future years.

NRLW

Amber Pilley of the Broncos is tackled during the Round 2 Women’s NRL match (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

It is something we didn’t think would happen as recently as early last year, when the league was still months away from being formally announced.

The inaugural season is set to be reviewed in the coming weeks, with a wide range of topics to be discussed including expansion, what worked and what didn’t, and getting more women involved in the sport.

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Broncos coach Paul Dyer has warned against the former, saying the integrity of the competition would suffer.

“I am sure there are a lot of girls sitting back there watching this competition at the moment,” he said.

“But I am one of those people who says we shouldn’t be rushing into this and increasing the teams.

“You don’t want to find yourself in two years’ time in a competition where you have 60-4 results – the integrity of the competition falls out the window.

“I just hate to think because of all the hype, we are in a position where everyone jumps through hoops and adds another two or three teams because it will end up in that position.”

With the inaugural season already over, focus is now turning to next year’s competition, where the Broncos will be the team to beat as the other three teams attempt to knock them off their perch.

Bring on 2019.

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