For anyone on the hunt for an afternoon of sporting progressivism and a sign of a game on the up there cannot have been many better places to be on Sunday afternoon than Headingley.
While Yorkshire’s County Championship opener against Leicestershire was played to a finale in front of a few hundred members on one side of the Headingley campus, on the other side of the new multimillion-pound stand which punctures the skyline in this particular part of north Leeds, records tumbled on a momentous day for women’s rugby league. A few years ago clubs such as Leeds and York did not even have women’s rugby league sides.
In fact, the best players in the country were restricted to performing on local playing fields in front of a few dog walkers, with those early trailblazers of the women’s game always quick to recall the tales of clearing broken glass off the fields before they put their kit on.
The question was always going to be what sort of a legacy the 2023 Women’s Super League could build after last year’s World Cup: here we received an encouraging opening answer.
“The women’s game has the potential to be the fastest-growing and most exciting part of rugby league,” the Leeds head coach, Lois Forsell, said. “It’s a slow burner, though; we’ve got to be patient and we’ve got to get it right.”
Leeds have made the commitment to playing as many of their WSL games alongside their male counterparts in double-headers this year. Others have followed suit. But the women’s side is building a core support all of its own, evidenced by the number of young girls here sporting shirts adorning the names of their new heroines, players such as the England superstar Amy Hardcastle and the New Zealand sensation Georgia Hale.
They were part of a record WSL crowd, with 5,308 people watching the 2022 champions fall to defeat against an impressive York Valkyrie outfit in a Grand Final rematch. For the first time there were more than competition points on the line, too. Leeds and York announced over the winter that they would be the first clubs to introduce payments for their players this season, albeit limited to win bonuses rather than full-time professional contracts.
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Nonetheless, it is a huge step forward for women’s rugby league, one which was unimaginable even two years ago, and one which meant that both these teams were playing to become the first WSL team to be paid for their on-field efforts. In the end it was York who earned that honour. “That’s a fact, we’re the first team to pay our players, aren’t we?” the York director of rugby, Lindsay Anfield, said with a smile afterwards.
“How exciting for them and for us as a club that they’re the first group of women’s players to get money in the bank. A couple of years ago I was selling raffle tickets before the games when I was coaching Castleford. Today was a different level and in terms of the ceiling for this sport … who knows now?” It is an exciting thought, given how far we have come since the competition’s beginning in 2017.
The progression of the WSL was emphasised further by the growing speculation some of the competition’s best players are heading for the NRL Women’s Premiership in Australia this year, where the players are predominantly full-time. The Leeds duo Fran Goldthorp and Georgia Roche are being courted, with both expected to leave.
York’s Hollie-Mae Dodd, who scored in their 34‑12 win, will definitely go, with Anfield confirming post‑match: “She’ll announce it when she’s ready but she’ll definitely go, and we’re behind her.” Dodd will sign for Canberra, while Roche is likely to join Newcastle.
Participation among girls under‑16 has increased by 200% in the five months since the World Cup. Some of the stars of tomorrow will have been here to watch these trailblazers and, on a day when payments for players finally became a reality, one could not help but wonder what sort of ceiling those young girls who have been inspired to take up the game could be faced with in a few years, given the trajectory this sport has enjoyed so far.
