THE student arena is one which, in my opinion – and it’s a view shared by many others – is hugely important for Rugby League.
First and foremost, students should be given every opportunity to play the game simply for the sake of it – to enable them, like anyone else, to enjoy a sport that I, and I’m certain most people reading this column, feel transcends just about all (maybe all) other sports.
But really it goes deeper than that.
The returns for Rugby League as a whole could potentially be huge as it’s quite feasible that people who play for their universities will, in many instances, go on to occupy positions of some influence in the wider world and will look back on their time in the 13-a-side game with plenty of affection.
It’s called ‘soft power’, and its importance and relevance should not be underestimated.
It’s a theme I’ve touched on many times for more years that I’d like to remember, often at the instigation of others, but it seems that there is still no real structure in place through which links with Rugby League alumni are properly maintained.
Perhaps it’s partly with that in mind that I’m reflecting on the completion of three years of the Women’s Student League.
The competition was launched in 2023 as a ‘pilot league’ with six teams involved, and I think it was six in the second campaign.
The third season (the one just gone, 2025-26) involved, in the end, only five sides. Nottingham, who had struggled in the second campaign, finally called it a day and unfortunately Leeds Beckett were unable, in the end, to step up in their place.
However, looking positively, the league has remained relatively stable, although I take the point of Andrea Murray, the Rugby Football League’s tireless national development manager, that it would be terrific if all eight teams that have either been involved on the field of play over the last three years, or have shown real interest in taking part, could come together at the same time.
That (or something like it) is where I anticipated, back in 2023, we’d be right now. Not so, although it was good to hear from Murray that what Northumbria (who have run two sides from the start and whose first team has yet to taste defeat) have to say about running a successful club is to be fully taken on board.
The RFL are definitely taking Women’s Student Rugby League seriously, and it may well be that the much-heralded 9s, which went well last autumn I believe and are to be repeated as a serious event with points at stake this year, is to be central to the focus on future growth and expansion.
I’d like to think that, in another three years’ time, the Women’s Student League will have at least doubled the number of sides in contention.
Another aspect of Rugby League which is (wrongly in my view) still seen as being outside the mainstream regards clubs in the south of England.
The RFL admitted, in their recent ‘More than a Game’ report, that as yet not a single southern outfit have secured accreditation as a community wellbeing hub (nine northern clubs have achieved exactly that, so far).
I can immediately think of several southern equivalents who should be well on the road – if not already on target – to such accreditation.
Let’s hope that, sooner rather than later and with the estimable help of the RFL, there are quite a few on the actual list.
Some might, of course, encounter intransigence from one or two neighbours (might I mention rugby union clubs?), although that can perhaps be overstated.
For example, Michael O’Hare, who is of course no stranger to readers of League Express, has elaborated on the comment I made in last week’s issue that “rugby union clubs used to pretend that players who left them for Rugby League never existed (even, I believe, ‘airbrushing’ such men from old team photos, although that might be anecdotal)”.
Mick said: “The RFU didn’t change photographs to strike out Northern Union players, but they were accused of obliterating their faces in a painting of Yorkshire versus Lancashire, called the Battle of the Roses, which hangs in the chairman’s suite at Twickenham.
“It depicts the match that took place at Fallowfield Stadium, Manchester on November 24, 1894, almost a year before the Northern Union (Rugby League) split from the Rugby Football Union.
“But, according to the curator of The World Rugby (sic) Museum (Phil McGowan who is from Rochdale and once played Rugby League) it’s a myth that suited both sides of the schism to believe.
“Only one, or possibly two, were painted out in order to put the then secretary of the RFU (Rowland Hill) into the painting as a faux referee. Lots of other NU renegades weren’t painted out.”
Food for thought there.
And also food for thought from Tony Moran, who got in touch with me to confirm that, by way of a hobby, he’s compiled statistics regarding the National Conference League, which wound itself up a few weeks ago in the wake of the RFL’s launch of its National Community Rugby League initiative.
Tony has league tables in place for the NCL stretching back to shortly after the turn of the century and it makes riveting reading.
He can be contacted at Admin@XiiiArchive.com.
Meanwhile, I’m happy to report that National League clubs were hugely better, on Saturday, at sending me match reports after the poor start on the opening day of the season a week earlier. Long may the progress continue.