Women’s rugby league will make history on Saturday and few people are better qualified to summarise the sport’s rise than Lois Forsell, who has witnessed both ends of the story.
The Women’s Challenge Cup final will take place at Wembley for the first time, as part of a double-header with the men’s event. Perhaps fittingly, the two most successful sides in the 11-year history of the competition have the honour as Leeds Rhinos take on the holders, St Helens, in a rematch of last year’s decider.
That game was played at Elland Road alongside the men’s semi-finals, but the upgrade for the final in the space of a year is nothing compared with a decade earlier. The first women’s cup final in 2012 was played in the rather more modest surroundings of Dewsbury’s Crown Flatt ground, when a couple of hundred people watched Featherstone beat Bradford.
Forsell, as the Bradford Thunderbirds hooker, was on the losing side that day and now coaches Leeds. “I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me then,” she says. “Even from five years ago when there was the launch of the Women’s Super League and we started playing at Super League grounds, it’s unbelievable.
“Those five years have snowballed. The game has changed very quickly but you wouldn’t have believed it back then. It’s huge for future generations of female players. Everyone has played a part in supporting it and that’s why it’s amazing what’s happening this weekend.”
The launch of the WSL in 2018 certainly felt like the defining moment. It allowed Super League clubs to launch their own women’s sides, something Leeds have done to great success. Forsell has been influential as a player and a coach, helping the Rhinos win the cup as a player in 2018.
Injury curtailed her playing career with her home town club but she has transitioned into coaching to great acclaim, helping Leeds win the WSL title last season. “I miss playing every weekend,” she says. “I go up to the stands and I miss it and big occasions like this are definitely like that. But I’ve got a big job to play and I’m so proud I can be part of that day with the girls.”
Forsell, as one of the early pioneers of women’s rugby league and its growth, has undoubtedly played a role in inspiring some of those taking part on Saturday. The hope is that a new generation of players will pick up a rugby ball thanks to the size of the occasion provided for women’s rugby league.
Thousands are expected to be inside Wembley for the kick-off at noon, a far cry from a decade ago in Dewsbury, when women’s rugby league felt like an afterthought to the men’s game. That is anything but the case now.
