Jillaroos’ Future Role in Las Vegas in Doubt
After the Australian rugby league team’s huge win on the weekend, attention turned to whether a women’s game should remain part of the fixture.
The NRL’s second trip to Las Vegas last week saw the women’s game represented for the first time, with the Australian Jillaroos taking on England. Not only was it historic for rugby league, but for women’s sport in general, with it being the first ever sporting clash to feature female athletes at the famous Allegiant Stadium.
From the time the fixture was released last year, the decision to have the Jillaroos play England seemed an interesting one. The World Cup-winning and superstar Australians playing a team which had never beaten them - the third ranked England. In their most recent meeting, the Jillaroos won 38-0, yet this was a year before the NRLW competition had even launched. Since then we’ve seen the professionalism and standard of the Australian players increase dramatically and the gap widen.
The scheduling of England as the Jillaroos’ opponents seemed to have been based, at least partly, on the fact that a men’s English Super League game was also being played, and hence a large group of travelling English fans would have another team to support. It’s unclear why New Zealand, who had defeated the Jillaroos in Melbourne at the 2023 Pacific Championships, gave them two good battles late last year, and have a large number of players in the NRLW, were overlooked given the New Zealand Warriors men were also on the Las Vegas schedule.
As we now know, the Jillaroos absolutely dominated the English team to notch a 90-4 win - the biggest ever loss suffered by an English women’s team in international rugby league. Their only points came in literally the final minute of the game. It was a scintillating performance from the Jillaroos, a squad who are at the top of their game. Keep in mind that the Jillaroos team is so strong, State of Origin sensation Jaime Chapman and Olympic gold medalist Emma Tonegato were just two stars who couldn’t even make the squad.
In the wash up, discussion soon turned to two things; four games were too many to be played on one day, and how such a one sided clash was a bad advertisement for women’s rugby league. The narrative was that the Jillaroos being so talented and athletic in comparison to their opponents was partly to blame for their own chances of taking part in the Las Vegas trip next year. Former men’s NRL player Josh Mansour said on breakfast radio this week,
“I think the Jillaroos’ success has almost been detrimental to them [selves].”
When asked about the makeup of future Las Vegas schedules, Australian Rugby League chairman Peter V’Landys, who believed that in hindsight the four matches was too many, said,
“We really do want to keep the [English] Super League partnership because that worked exceptionally well.”
With two men’s NRL games also likely to remain, this implies it would be the women’s game to miss out if it was to be culled to three matches. Newscorp journalist David Riccio followed up and asked whether the women’s match would have to make way, to which the ARLC Chairman diplomatically said,
“I’m the biggest supporter of the women’s game, so I don’t want to discount them out, Australia were just too strong.”
One of the reasons provided by the NRL for the re-think was that by staging four games, the crowd became fatigued, with many leaving before the final game - the men’s premiers Penrith against 2024 finalists Cronulla.
Now, as someone who has attended, and reported on, many sporting events where there are multiple games back-to-back, I can tell you that the majority of people aren’t in their seats for two full games of a double header, so the idea that a crowd of 45,000 people would remain in their seats for four consecutive games over seven hours, was extremely ambitious to put it mildly.
If indeed the grand plan for the USA trip is that the game will find and convert new fans, is confronting them with four straight games of a code they’re unfamiliar with the most effective strategy to do so?
With some creative thinking, there are ways to maintain the four game fixture, and still have the women’s game as a key component of that. For the women’s match to remain, it seems clear a more competitive fixture is required, whether it’s the Jillaroos against New Zealand, a State of Origin, an All-Stars match or even NRLW game.
In terms of scheduling, we just need to look at how some other global sporting events such as tennis, basketball, rugby sevens and others, host multiple matches in a day while giving fans a degree of flexibility as to how to attend.
Chatting to HER WAY, former NRLW player and now expert commentator Shonny Stowers agreed that thinking outside the box would be beneficial.
“Maybe just think about the way they run it would be a better way of doing it. I hope that our female side is still in there for the long run, because they deserve it. They’ve got so much to offer, and it’s such a great product.”
HER WAY asked how Shonny felt seeing the Jillaroos, many of whom are old teammates or opponents, being given the opportunity to play on such an occasion, and the negative chat which followed:
“It’s such a great stage for the game we all love to be seen, and to have such quality players be on that stage, and producing the exact type of game - the big hits, the athletic style, showing everyone what ability they have - to have it kind of flipped and have that come about, it’s really heartbreaking for me. These girls work really hard for all of these opportunities, and they deserve them, and they had a really outstanding game. There’s definitely work to be done by other nations across the world, and we can help them develop.”
The Jillaroos did all that was asked of them - they were great ambassadors for the sport, they caused no headlines with bad behaviour, they played some incredible rugby league, and did their country proud. And yet somehow the players are returning to Australia (at time of posting, some have stayed on in the US for a holiday) to find out that their involvement in future Las Vegas fixtures was in doubt because they played too well?
There’s a clear and massive market for women’s full contact sports in the USA, particularly for one such as rugby league where the athletes are easy to identify, as they aren’t hidden by protective equipment compared to gridiron. The NRL has an amazing opportunity to put the women’s game front and centre, and not just on the field.
We saw clips of front rower Sarah Togatuki at a dance-off go viral during the week leading up to the game. Second rower Yasmin Clydsdale was unafraid to sing on live national breakfast TV during an interview alongside her bestie Lauren Brown. The personalities and stories of female athletes is something which has become a centrepiece to the growth of women’s sport - think Simone Biles’ championing of mental health, Ilona Maher and her stance on body image, Coco Gauff being both playful as she does TikToks with her family while simultaneously standing up for what she believes in.
In 2024, HER WAY interviewed Jenny Nguyen, owner of the revolutionary Sports Bra women’s sport venue in Portland, USA. At a time when so many women’s sports were starting to explode, I asked Jenny why the biggest of all American sports, the NFL, wasn’t looking at creating a women’s league.
“I think there is grace, beauty and femininity around many, many [women’s] sports, and I think that is traditionally embraced by the general public.”
Those sports, such as tennis, gymnastics, basketball and soccer for example, are predominantly non-contact.
However the emergence of rugby union star and Sports Illustrated covergirl Maher after the Paris Olympics, has shown Americans it’s time to redefine what athleticism can look like for women.
Jenny is of the belief that long held views, rooted in sexism of a patriarchal society, where female athletes’ faces and athletic physiques can be seen instead of being shielded by helmets and padding, could actually be something which full contact sports such as NRL could use to their advantage.
“Women’s rugby (union) is more popular here in the US than women’s American football, and a part of it because they don’t have all the protective gear”, Jenny told HER WAY.
It’s well past the time for female athletes to be made to feel grateful to be given opportunities. As Shonny said, the Jillaroos players work hard to be the best players in the world in their sport, and they work hard to earn such opportunities. Many of them are the best in the world at their sport while still juggling other jobs, which they took time off from in order to make the trip to Las Vegas. They shouldn’t be punished because they’re too good at what they do. Instead, they should be celebrated, supported and on billboards.