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Opinion
In March this year, the Australian Rugby League Commission made an announcement about its planned expansion of the NRL Women’s premiership.
With four new teams set to be included by the 2024 season and the introduction of a salary cap system which would increase average salaries by 28 per cent, the growth seemed consistent with the NRL’s approach so far; slow and steady.
But last week, Peter V’landys spoke about his ambition to grow faster, with each NRL club to have an NRLW team within five years.
To be extremely clear, that would mean the introduction of 11 new teams in five years.
Whil I love the ambition for the women’s game, V’landys’ vision concerns me.
Let’s begin with talent. I’ll be blunt, we don’t have the talent to support 11 new teams in five years.
It was my understanding that the talent pool was one of the reasons for the slow growth in the first place, to ensure that the competition would have depth before looking to add width. That approach seems to have been completely thrown out the window.
Why?
The importance of a sustainable competition is one of the reasons I think the next teams introduced should be from areas where pathways exist, that aren’t being fully taken advantage of yet, like North Queensland or Canberra.
Some of you may think it’s a bit rich of me to suggest putting a pause on the introduction of Sydney teams given that my team, the Parramatta Eels, already has an NRLW team.
But if it’s one of the reasons you have enjoyed the quality of the NRLW so much, why would you want to dilute the Sydney talent-base which is already servicing the St George Illawarra Dragons, Parramatta and Sydney Roosters.
(Photo by Ashley Feder/Getty Images)
This year, we saw the Newcastle Knights progress through the season without a win. It’s not a criticism of the Knights, they are a new team and have established some important building blocks. But with a team made up of players mostly from New Zealand and North Queensland, it’s clear that the development of the pathway still needs some work.
I also wonder why there is such a focus on ensuring that every NRL club has a men’s team and an NRLW team. Are we looking to the AFL and following their approach?
I adore the AFLW and the opportunity it has given women to play Aussie rules at an elite level. But there have been decisions made which have resulted in great opportunity and great challenge over the last couple of years; some of them pandemic-related, and others related to such fast expansion.
Rugby league is its own sport and should be learning from the AFLW and the challenges it has had with rapid expansion, not seek to emulate it.
Expansion is always such a hot topic in the NRL. Why not use the women’s game to expand into new areas? Sydney already has too many clubs and if you started the competition again today, you would not have so many in that city (particularly when couple have shown no interest in having a women’s team). The NRLW should look to history but not be completely bound by it.
(Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)
My other question is around pay. The ARLC announcement in March has made some moves in this space, but there is still a lot of work to do.
If we want to introduce another 11 teams, which will mean extending the season by 11 more rounds, then we are going to need to make a lot of progress in the pay space in a very short period of time. And it’s going to need to be for a lot more players.
At the moment, with only six teams involved, the season is relatively short. It still significantly impacts the players’ ability to work, study and manage caring responsibilities, but compared to other national sporting competitions, it is not as long.
If the season gets longer, we need to pay these women appropriately. It is not okay that these women exist in financial insecurity just for our entertainment.
There was also some appetite from V’landys for the men and women to play in double headers. Again, while this may work in some situations, the world has changed dramatically and people don’t have the time to spend six hours at the footy on a weekend to watch two full games.
There are more pressing issues for the NRLW right now, like ensuring our players compete at appropriate facilities. There have been instances during the season where the players had to line up to go to the bathroom before the games because the change rooms only had two toilet cubicles and a trough.
At the semi-finals at Leichhardt Oval, the Roosters and Dragons agreed to share dressing rooms so four cubicles could be going at once.
When we expect elite performance from these women, these cannot be the conditions we expect them to play in. Slow and steady has been winning the race so far.
It’s unclear to me why we are moving away from a winning formula.