Four new NRLW teams entering the competition by 2024, Origin becoming a two-game series next year, pay increases and private health insurance – today is a proud day for rugby league.
The ARL Commission’s announcements make for great reading and the timing of the changes looks just right.
NRLW will add two clubs next year and two more in 2024 to become a 10-team competition. When the last expansion announcement was made, the process was too quick.
Three new teams were announced in June with the season initially planned to start in August. I had many questions about how the new clubs would be in a position to form a team, appropriately support the members of that team and get them ready in such a short space of time.
Maddie Studdon of the Eels celebrates with teammates after kicking the match-winning field goal against the Newcastle Knights. (Photo by Ashley Feder/Getty Images)
In a way, the postponement of the Women’s Premiership to the start of 2022 helped these clubs by giving them the time needed to put a team on the park.
This next phase of expansion will give the prospective new clubs time to consider how they will appropriately fund their women’s program and how to ensure they are ready to support their new female players.
There is still no word on who these new clubs will be with an announcement expected in July, but my strong preference is before we include any more Sydney teams, that we consider other regions that already have a functioning pathway.
If the NRL men’s competition was to start again from scratch tomorrow, we would not have as many Sydney teams, so why would we make the same mistake in the women’s game?
At every point of the expansion conversation, they key point is depth not width. It would be silly to expand too quickly, dilute the talent and depend on non-existent pathways.
My prediction will be North Queensland and Canberra will be the two clubs introduced in 2023, with the New Zealand Warriors to be brought back into the fold in 2024.
But we can’t continue to expand the competition, expect more from the athletes in terms of training and time away from home without addressing pay. It is not appropriate that elite athletes be forced to exist in a state of financial insecurity to play the game that they love.
The announcement by the NRL will see the introduction of a salary cap system which will increase average salaries by 28%. For the 2022 season later this year, a salary cap of $350,000 per team will be introduced and will also allow clubs to contract two marquee players as full-time employees with additional salary cap dispensation.
For all contracted NRLW players, private health Insurance will also be provided. This is a necessary and important change. I particularly want to applaud that decision. When we talk about equality for women in sport; it is about so much more than pay. It is also about ensuring that these athletes have the support around them to succeed including medical benefits and support, access to facilities and access to wellbeing support.
But there’s more than just change to the NRLW. State of Origin will be a two-game series next year. The QRL announced last year that it would be offering the same payments to their male and female Origin representatives. This means the Maroons will pay up to $15,000 to players who take part in this year’s women’s Origin clash.
This is crucial to ensure that the best players can compete in this series. When James Tedesco is called into State of Origin camp, he can pack a bag and be ready to go into camp straight away, because playing footy is his full-time job.
Our women still cannot do this and before they go into Origin camp need to make sure their commitments away from footy are looked after. Queensland’s decision last year will go some way to rectifying this and I am hopeful NSW will follow suit.
The NRL is also moving in the right direction, announcing representative payments will increase from $4000 to $6000 while All Stars payments will increase from $1600 to $3000.
This a really proud day for rugby league. The criticism of the NRL has been constant, in particular about the decision to take it slow and expand at a sustainable pace. But this pace has meant the game can take it slow and ensure there is enough talent to sustain our brilliant and exciting competition.
Today is another step towards professionalisation. Let’s celebrate this and then think about what the next steps are to make our female athletes even more successful.
I’m excited for the next two years, particularly for the fans who will soon get to experience what it feels like to have both a men’s team and a women’s team, the young women who will get the chance to represent their clubs but most of all for the next generation of boys and girls who continue to get the message that elite sport can be played by everyone.
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Maxtruck
Roar Rookie
Equal pay but shorter games Bit like the tennis ?
Mick Holland
Roar Rookie
NRLW Nth QLD Cowgirls Brisbane Fire Hawks Gold Coast Titans Newcastle Knights Sydney Seals Western Sydney Wild Cats Illawarra St George Dragons Canberra Raiders Auckland Warriors Wellington Wolves Two games on Wednesday night FTA 6:00pm & 7:30pm. 8pm game played in NZ = 6pm in Australia's east coast
Mary Konstantopoulos
Expert
The Aussie 7s team is a completely different proposition - full time professional athletes. The Super W is the complete opposite.
Adam
Roar Guru
But how much do you hear about the Tahs at all?
Adam
Roar Guru
I knew it was on and I live in Tasmania. So not sure where you're looking? But my point was more that the women's 7s are paid by far and away more than the NRLW players so RA is not entirely behind the other codes
Birdy
Roar Rookie
Surely with the way the Parramatta merchandise and sponsorship sold out, a second western suburbs team has to be top if the list.
Dave
Guest
Jane stop attacking someone for having a different opinion to you :happy:
Dave
Guest
The standard didn't get worse no, but there was enough talent to go around. Now i don't believe there's enough talent to fill another 4 teams in two years, i don't think that's a crazy statement to make Im interested, if you think 4 teams in two years is fine, what's your cutoff? Why not go 6 teams in 3 years? 10 in 4?
Dave
Guest
Im well aware they have their own comp......how many players in the Queensland comp would you say are ready to make the jump to NRLW? I've made that pretty clear, because there's not enough surplus talent currently and you won't make up the difference in two years. Go ahead and list for me the highly talented players you believe are NRLW quality who currently aren't in a squad,.........i'll wait
Dave
Guest
It's not Sydney centric at all, do you want me to use examples that i'm not familiar with? I can only talk to what i know. Harvey Norman is one of the stronger comps going around, i know this from speaking to friends that have played in the comp and have also played in other comps. As a male that's the best source of intel i'm going to get, are you saying that they are incorrect in their assessment? I'm not attacking anyone, i have an opinion and i'm voicing it. Same as you, get off your high horse Jane
Terry Polious
Roar Rookie
I think it is pretty fair, I hear about the Eels all the time with their Women's side and i do not hear anything about the Tahs or any of the other Super W teams.
Jane
Roar Rookie
Adam I am a Reds regional member and I had no idea it was on. How is that not a failing of the code?
Jane
Roar Rookie
This is such a Sydney centric outlook, come to Central Queensland and see the talent that is on offer before attacking the writer for having a different opinion to you.
Jimmy
Roar Guru
Lets use North Queensland as an example for a moment. Queensland have their own second tier competition, Not Harvey Norman a huge amount of the worlds beating Brisbane broncos once played in that comp so we know the standard is good. It is the closest team to PNG which is a gold mine for talent and interest and they already have a funded bid and competition for spots. Exactly how do you not think that the competition cannot sustain 2 new clubs in OVER 12 months?
Jimmy
Roar Guru
The Storms majority of players will come from areas like the Sunshine Coast, It is a very similar expansion model to the NHL – do you think areas like Texas and Southern Florida are full of gun Ice hockey players? – and it works really well. So i say expand into Melbourne.
Jake Tafau
Roar Rookie
You can't imagine it so it doesn't exist? North Queensland are ready to go right now? So with a full season to prepare you would think they are ready to go. The NRLW brought in 2 new teams this year and did the standard get any worse? I think they are better prepared than you think.
Dave
Guest
*between now and 2024
Adam
Roar Guru
Is that a completely fair accusation though? The women's 7s team are currently highest paid only behind the cricket team. I know the Super W is not well promoted, but that goes equally to the Super rugby in it's entirety...
Adam
Roar Guru
I know I might get shot down a little, but it's a shame that Union will get canabilised (as I'm sure it will). The only saving grace for Union is that the women's 7s team is actually pretty handy and they actually have a minimum wage of 44,500k. Not wonderful, but certainly enough to attract some interest for the moment. In my utopian world the NRL and AR are able to co-exist, but alas that ship sailed in the late 90s...
Dave
Guest
I referenced it because it’s a competition I’m familiar with and I can’t imagine any other comp of a similar level within Australia is notably higher in skill than that one. So if Harvey Norman is at least the status quo across the country for skill level……..then there isn’t close to enough girls that are talented enough to make the jump to NRLW in the next two years without severely hurting the quality of the competition. Sure there’s probably some, but a whole NRLW squad worth of athletes ready to play, yea nah It’s unfair to say they’re running last? Not sure how that works? The point was that a strong rugby league regional city like Newcastle wasn’t able to field a team full of locals and had to bring in a substantial amount of people and even then they aren’t getting desired results. Why would Canberra et al be any different? We need 96 new athletes to make the jump between now and 2022. Not including squad size increases in the future and retirements etc. There are not 96 League players in this country (or NZ) for that matter that would be talented or skilled enough to make the jump now, there wouldn’t even be 50 and you aren’t making up the difference in 2 years. They’ll raid the hell out of union and other sports, which is there prerogative but overall harms female sport in the country and will throw a tonne of girls in who aren’t ready or will never be up to standard. If you’re happy with an inferior product best of luck to you, I really enjoy the NRLW but a drop in skill level of that significance will make the watching notably less enjoyable. As someone in a position of influence I’d really like you to sit down and have a think about why they’re expanding so rapidly, increase by 2/3rds no less. The NRL with its large amounts of development pathways and many untapped Cities to base teams in wouldn’t increase by 2/3rds, they’re extremely cautious adding in one team