IT WAS the biggest party in town earlier this year, and next year we’re invited.
Yes, it has finally been confirmed that Super League is joining the NRL in staging a game at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
A city known for its bright lights and high-class entertainment, even before rugby league turned up there, will host some of the game’s best and most well-known players as Super League looks to break boundaries like never before.
Wigan Warriors and Warrington Wolves will head to the US State of Nevada to participate in the expanded NRL event that proved so popular in March and will open the four-game extravaganza on Saturday, March 1st.
Canberra Raiders v New Zealand Warriors and Penrith Panthers v Cronulla Sharks will then take place either side of a test match between the Australian Jillaroos and Stuart Barrow’s England, or maybe even Great Britain, Women’s side.
This is a chance like no other to showcase our great game to a whole new audience and break free from the perceived northern heartlands stereotype.
If we get it right, it could mean a whole new future for the game that is as bright as the neon lights on Vegas’ famous strip.
I do usually like to be positive about most initiatives the game tries to bring about and always try to focus on the good points of what might eventually come from this. But there is still one question that no matter how hard I try to push it to the back of my mind, still niggles with me. And that is: “Are Australia the right opponent for England to face in the international test match?”
It is great that our leading female players have had the invite to test themselves against the very best in the world, but was it the right fixture to schedule with international rugby league in mind?
There is an Ashes Test Series taking place eight months later between the same two sides. One argument that is so often aimed at our game over here is that with loop fixtures, cup games and play-off matches, some teams find themselves playing each other four or five times in any season, which for many fans is just too often – so what is the difference here?
When the Ashes Series was announced, much was made of the fact that it would be the first time our women’s team had faced the Jillaroos in 12 years – the last meeting being in the 2013 World Cup. But now when we do meet Australia in the Ashes, we’ll have already played them in the same calendar year, and something about that just doesn’t sit right with me.
As many of you will know by now I am a great advocate for, and supporter of, women’s rugby league and the more top-quality games our leading players get the better, but even I will admit that, despite the progress our nation has made since the 2022 World Cup semi-final defeat to New Zealand, we are still trailing someway behind the Aussies.
Many will predict a big Australia win, and the bookies will no doubt support that view. If that is the case, which I really hope it isn’t, what is that going to do to promote the Ashes and build interest in the three games to follow later in the year? And what is it going to do for our players’ confidence ahead of the trip to the southern hemisphere?
Would it therefore maybe not have been better to have the international game against New Zealand? As the World Cup semi-final showed, this could prove to be a much closer contest, which could offer a better spectacle on the day, build confidence and more than whet the appetite for what is to come. Although with the NRL organising the event, I guess Australia were always going to be involved. One way this could still have happened and doubled up as a great preview for the Ashes would be to introduce a World Club Challenge trophy for the women’s game.
Much like in the men’s game, a showdown between our Super League Grand Final winners and the NRLW winners, whoever they may be in 2024, would surely be a blockbuster encounter. With a brand new trophy on offer and seeds planted for revenge on the international stage later in the year, neither side would give anything less than their absolute best.
If the desire wasn’t already high enough for every single player to get their hands on their respective competition trophy, the added prize of a plane ticket to the city that never sleeps, would surely also see bigger domestic seasons than we have ever seen before.
It’s all very well me giving these opinions, but it won’t change anything, the fixture is set now and whatever the outcome, it’s going to be a great occasion to be involved in and those players that make the trip will come away from it with memories that last a lifetime.
And if Jodie Cunningham, Emily Rudge, Amy Hardcastle et al return to these shores with a very large slice of humble pie for me, I will happily eat it. I would probably even ask for seconds.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 499 (August 2024)
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