New Zealand are the latest country to take up wheelchair rugby league and, despite a tough start, their aim is for the Kiwis to rise to the top, writes IAN GOLDEN.
HISTORY was made in New Zealand on 1st November when Wheelchair Rugby League was played in the country for the first time as their newly formed national side took on Australia in a full-blown international match.
It was a baptism of fire for the “Wheel Kiwis” who selected from the Queensland competition as well as Wheelchair Basketball players in Auckland, and their inexperience, after just five hours training together, was no match for the side ranked third in the world.
New Zealand may have lost the match 98-4, but they achieved both of their major aims – playing the match and scoring a try.
The Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup is heading down under in 2026. It’s the first time in 18 years that the competition will be held in Australia, since the first ever competition back in 2008 that was won by England.
New Zealand are obviously keen to enter a side, and it’s thanks to New South Wales Wheelchair RL head coach Edie George that it’s all come to fruition.
“Wheelchair rugby league in New Zealand has been a long time coming,” he said. “Disability Sport Auckland have started to facilitate Wheelchair Rugby League at their spinal units. There’s a lot of young people participating in the sport which is good, and it means there’s a future.
“New Zealand Rugby League have got behind the sport. Our CEO Greg Peters was at the last Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup and saw the sport and said that we need to get this going. He found out that Disability Sport Auckland were putting on these events and backed it from there.”
George was assistant coach of Australia at the last World Cup. He’s been involved in wheelchair rugby league for 11 years, coming across the sport when he worked at a rehab centre in Sydney. Wheelchair rugby league were there so he jumped in a chair and they told him he could play even though he’s able-bodied.
“Before I knew it, I was chairman of NSW Wheelchair Rugby League,” he said. “I then became head coach of NSW and assistant coach of Australia. Now here I am, head coach of the Wheel Kiwis.”
“I have an interest in New Zealand as my wife is Maori, and at the last World Cup, I was talking to Australia Wheelaroos head coach Brett Clark and I said that I’d like to start a side in New Zealand. My passion is around the development of players. The opportunity came up, I said I wanted to help and they gave me the head coaching role.”
Two matches were played between New Zealand in Australia in the space of four days, both in Auckland. The second match saw just as an emphatic win for Australia as they won 110-8. When the Wheelaroos were 66-0 up at half-time, some eyes went to the record books, as when Australia achieved their record win in 2013, a 148-0 demolition of Scotland, they were 68-0 up at the break.
Thankfully for New Zealand, the same didn’t happen to them, and they scored two tries of their own in the second half and slowed down the Australian scoring.
George says that naturally, it wasn’t about the results, it was about getting the matches played and launching the game officially in New Zealand.
In the first match, it took 72 minutes for New Zealand to get on the board, and it was a well-worked try as Jamie Tapp finished off a good move to score in the corner.
“I gave Jamie the biggest hug when he scored that try,” George said. “I was really chuffed for him and he’ll go down in the history books as the first ever try scorer for the Wheel Kiwis and no-one can take that away from him.
“We’ve not focused on the results in these matches. The forefront of our thinking was to create a legacy for these guys. It’s the first time that we’ve had a national side, so it’s a stepping stone to future players.
“There’s a lot of backing from New Zealand Rugby League. I believe that the Wheel Kiwis will be at the next World Cup.”
New Zealand have a lot of ground to make up, as George knows. He is still the head coach of the New South Wales wheelchair side, who lost 42-36 to Queensland in this year’s State Challenge, a match as memorable and fierce as any “running rugby” State of Origin encounter.
The Australia side for the matches against New Zealand contained four players from each state side, which just showed why they were too much for the Wheel Kiwis, this time anyway.
As George says, there’s a lot of interest in Auckland, where they will now need regular domestic competition to produce the local talent.
In Australia, the competition is already established in New South Wales, where this year, the Rolling Raiders, affiliated to Canberra, took the title in their first year in the competition, beating St George Illawarra Dragons 50-36 in the Grand Final.
In Queensland, despite winning four State Challenges in a row, the sport is also still growing, and a State Cup was held there for the first time in late October, organised by their chairman Zac Schumacher, who was also one of the eight Australian players who played against New Zealand in the two international matches. Twelve games were played over two days with the competition eventually being won by North Queensland Cowboys.
George concludes: “The sport is growing and the fact that we’ve played Australia now, twice, is great. Our overall goal, us and Australia, is to have the Southern Hemisphere sides play more in the domestic league and internationals, and get into the top two sides in the world.”
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 503 (December 2024)
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