Women's rugby league in Australia

Women's rugby league is a popular women's sport in Australia. The sport has a high level of participation in the country both recreational and professional. Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) is the national governing body of the sport in Australia, organising the Australian Women's Rugby League, the Australian women's national team, and the nine state governing bodies of the game, among other duties. Women's participation of modern rugby league has been recorded since the early 1920s. It has since become one of Australia's most popular women's team sports.^[2]

History

1920s

The first Women's Rugby League match in Australia was played in Sydney, on Saturday, 17 September 1921. Players, who had been training in the preceding months, had been divided into two teams, named Metropolitan (who played in blue jerseys) and Sydney (who played in maroon jerseys). Metropolitan won the match 21–11.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} The crowd of 30,000 was the largest ever for women’s sport in Australia^{[citation needed]} for many years.^[when?] A second 'return' match was played the following Saturday, 24 September 1921. Three matches were held in 1922 in April, August and October. The organisation was disbanded prior to the 1923 season.^[8][9]

Date	Team 1	Score	Team 2	Venue	References
17 Sep 1921	Metropolitan	21 — 11	Sydney	Agricultural Ground	Sun[3][4] DT[5][6]
24 Sep 1921	Metropolitan	3 — 9	Sydney	Agricultural Ground	Sun[10][11]
17 Apr 1922	Metropolitan	10 — 25	Sydney	National Park, Newcastle	NS[12]
7 Aug 1922	Metropolitan	13 — 0	Sydney	Newcastle Sports Ground	NMH[13]
2 Oct 1922	Metropolitan	11 — 11	Sydney	Sydney Sports Ground	DT[14] Sun[15]

1970s

In the mid-1970s Women's Rugby League teams were organised in Perth, including South Perth and Cottesloe.^{[citation needed]}

In 1976, a Women's Rugby League team from Manurewa in Auckland, New Zealand toured Australia. The Manurewa club had earlier received junior boys teams from Goulburn and Lalor Park, Sydney and these two clubs offered to host a visit from Manurewa's ladies team. A women's team was formed in Goulburn to play against the tourists. They played two matches, one in Goulburn and another at Endeavour Field in Cronulla. The Lalor Park team had played and won four local matches prior to their match against Manurewa.^[16][17]

1990s

In the early part of the 1990s Women's Rugby League competitions were run in Sydney, the Illawarra and the Australian Capital Territory. Some of the clubs from those regions participated in an annual knock-out competition.^[18] The East Canberra club won this knock-out tournament in three consecutive years: 1991, 1992 and 1993. Other participating clubs included the Albion Park Outlaws, Calwell Colts, North Sydney, Northern Districts Illawarra, Warilla Warriors, Woden Valley and the Wollongong Wildcats.^[19][20] In the final of the 1994 tournament, Picton defected Bulli.^[21]

In 1995, Australia hosted a tour by the New Zealand national team. This was the inaugural series of Test Matches for both countries in Women's Rugby League. Tour matches were played in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane.^[22][23]

In 1996, Australia hosted a seven match, three Test tour by the Great Britain women's national rugby league team. Australia claimed their inaugural international win in the First Test in Canberra.^[24] Great Britain, however, won the Second Test in Brisbane and the Third Test at Redfern Oval in Sydney to claim a series victory.^[25]

The Australian national team toured New Zealand in 1997 (both matches lost) and Fiji in 1998 (both matches won).^[26][27] Hosting duties for a Test Match series in 1999 were shared with New Zealand with games played at Leichhardt Oval and Penrith Stadium in Sydney and the third and final match played in Auckland. Australia beat New Zealand for the first time in the Second Test at Penrith, but the Kiwi Ferns won the series, 2–1.^{[28][29][30][31][32]}

The women's game in Queensland expanded from Brisbane and Ipswich in 1998 when a competition commenced in Mackay. Souths beat the previously undefeated Norths in the Grand Final.^[33]

During the later years of the 1990s National Championships were conducted with representative, rather than club, teams participating. In 1997, Illawarra beat Brisbane in the final. The 1998 tournament was held at Pizzey Park, Burleigh Heads and included teams from Sydney, Canberra, Illawarra, Brisbane, Ipswich and for the first time Western Australia.^[34] The 1999 tournament was reconfigured to have four state/territory teams. New South Wales beat Queensland in the final, ahead of Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.^[35]

The year 1999 saw the introduction of an interstate series between Queensland and New South Wales. The teams play for the Nellie Doherty Cup. Although this ongoing series was occasionally referred to in the media as the Women's State of Origin the respective teams were selected on a residential basis until 2017. Queensland won this augural match, 16–14.^[36]

2000s

Australia participated in the inaugural Women's Rugby League World Cup in November 2000, playing two matches each against Great Britain & Ireland and New Zealand. The Australian squad comprised players from the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.^[37][38]

National Championships were held at Belmont, Western Australia in 2000, Rooty Hill, New South Wales in 2001, Ipswich, Queensland in 2002, West Belconnen, Australian Capital Territory in 2003, Runaway Bay, Queensland in 2005, and Queanbeyan, New South Wales in 2006. Queensland won the tournament in 2000 and 2001. In 2003, Queensland Whites defeated Queensland Maroons in the final, ahead of ACT and NSW teams. The tournament was not held in 2004. In 2005, South East Queensland beat a Queensland Barbarians team in the final, ahead of NSW City and NSW Country teams. in 2006, Brisbane beat Sydney Metro in the final, ahead of NSW Country Monaro and NSW Country Southern Division teams.^[39][40][41]

The 2008 Women's Rugby League World Cup was the first held in Australia from 26 October, culminating in the final between Australian Jillaroos and the Kiwi Ferns on 22 November. It was held at Stockland Park alongside the Police World Cup. Eight teams took part including defending champions New Zealand.

2010s

The 2011 All Stars match included the first Women's All Stars exhibition match which was won by the NRL Women's All Stars 22–6.

In 2016 the first local derby by NRL clubs was played Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks and St. George Illawarra Dragons had a Women's rugby league nines match at Southern Cross Group Stadium which aired on Fox Sports it was a curtain-raiser for the main game Sharks won 16–12.^{[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]}

The New South Wales Rugby League announced the creation of a nine-a-side under-18s women's league for 2017 Named the Tarsha Gale Nines after the former Australian Jillaroos and NSW captain of the 1990s.^{[52][53][54][55][56][57][58]}

For the first time in the sport's history the 2017 Women's Rugby League World Cup was held concurrently with the men's tournament.^[59][60]

On 14 May 2017 the first Women's City vs Country Origin game was played.^[61][62]

National Championships

The Women's Rugby League Australian National Championships have continually evolved since their establishment in the early 1990s. The tournament was initially for club sides, with the ability of the players to self-fund their travel to the tournament being a factor in the number of teams participating. 1994 saw a change to regional representative teams. In 2018 and 2019 the tournament featured the best Australian-based players in the women's game. With the advent and success of the NRL Women's Premiership NRLW, the tournament was revised to have a development focus on emerging talent.

Year	Winner	Score	Runner Up	Date of Final	Host Location	Other Competing Teams	Ref
1991	East Canberra
1992	East Canberra	18 – 6	North Sydney	11 Oct 1992	Rugby League Park	Albion Park Outlaws, Wollongong Wildcats, Warilla Warriors, Woden Valley and Calwell Colts	[19]
1993	East Canberra	24 – 0	Northern Districts Illawarra	25 Jul 1993	O'Connor Oval		[20]
1994	Picton	32 – 0	Bulli Eagles	12 Jun 1994	Kippax Oval, Canberra		[21]
1995	Illawarra	26 – 0	Canberra	11 Jun 1995		Hunter, Riverina, Sydney
1996	Sydney						[63]
1997	Illawarra	12 – 10	Brisbane				CM
1998	Brisbane		Sydney	6 Jun 1998	Pizzey Park, Burleigh Heads	Sydney, Canberra, Illawarra, Brisbane, Ipswich, Western Australia (debut)
1999	NSW	12 – 8	Queensland	13 Jun 1999	West Belconnen Leagues Club	ACT, WA
2000	Queensland		NSW	11 Jun 2000	Belmont, WA	WA, ?	AR
2001	Queensland	12 – 6	NSW		Rooy Hill RSL		AR
2002	Queensland A	32 – 10	NSW		Ipswich
2003	Queensland Whites	20 – 12	Queensland Maroons		West Belconnen; Canberra	ACT, NSW
2004	Not held						AR
2005	South East Queensland		Queensland Barbarians		Runaway Bay; Gold Coast	NSW City; NSW Country	AR
2006	Brisbane	18 – 10	Sydney Metro	11 Jun 2006	Seiffert Oval, Queanbeyan	NSW Country Monaro, NSW Country Southern Division	CT
2007	Brisbane	12 – 6	Sydney Metro		Kougari Oval' Wynnum	Cairns (debut); Central Queensland (debut); NSW Country National Barbarians	AR
2008	South East Queensland	14 – 4	Sydney City		Sydney	NSW Country, North Queensland, Barbarians	AR
2009	Brisbane		NSW City		Runaway Bay; Gold Coast	NSW Residents; North Queensland North; North Queensland South	AR
2010	to 2017. Unknown. In some years only State Championships were held.
2018	NSW Country	16 – 12	NSW City	3 Jun 2018	Owen Park	ADF Women; Combined Affiliated States; Qld City; Qld Country	[64]
2019	NSW City	34 – 4	NSW Country	2 Jun 2019	Pizzey Park, Gold Coast	ADF Women; Combined Affiliated States; SEQ; Qld Country	[65]
2020	Not held due to lockdown measures in response to Covid-19
2021	Western Australia	10 – 6	First Nation's Gems	23 May 2021	Moreton Daily Stadium, Redcliffe	ADF Women; NT; SA; Victoria	[66]
2022	NSW Country	24 – 0	Western Australia	12 Jun 2022	Pizzey Park, Gold Coast	ADF Women; First Nation's Gems; NT; Victoria	[67]

Competitions

• NRL Women's Premiership
• Australian Women's Rugby League
• Brisbane and District Women's Rugby League
• Sydney Metropolitan Women's Rugby League

See also

• Rugby league in Australia
• Women's rugby league
• NRL Women's Premiership – the official league for women's rugby league in Australia starting in 2018
• Women's rugby league in Great Britain

References

External links

• Official website

This page was last edited on 2 April 2024, at 00:20