NSW and Queensland women's rugby league "secured its first major sponsor in a bid to support young girls in reaching representative competitions," according to the AAP. The partnership with retail company Harvey Norman will see an expansion of the Queensland Rugby League Academy of Sport Girls program and will "help ensure" U14 and U16 girls "continue to gain opportunities to experience representative football." Until recently in NSW, there has been a "longstanding gap between mixed junior leagues and open-aged competitions" (AAP, 4/12). The partnership with Harvey Norman includes naming rights of the NSW and Queensland women's Interstate Challenge teams for a July 23 match, NSW City Origin team for its May 13 match, NSW Rugby League Open Women's Conference starting April 22, NSWRL Women's Premiership starting April 29, female-only coaching clinics and grassroots female carnivals and programs in both states (National Rugby League).
STRATEGIC APPROACH: The AAP also reported NSWRL CEO David Trodden said that a professional women's rugby league competition will "come to fruition soon." Trodden said that rugby league is taking a "strategic approach" in ensuring players from the age of six can continue "right through to open age and professional competitions." Rugby league is also "playing catch-up with a number of other sports" such as the Australian Football League -- after it started a semi-professional women's competition this year -- and the likes of netball and cricket, which "recently upped payments to women playing their codes." But Trodden said that rugby league "needed more hard work and a constant flow of players to get to that point." Trodden: "Certainly it is the long-term goal of anyone in the game to have a women's professional league but I think strategically our view is we get to that point by making sure that the base of the pyramid is very firm" (AAP, 4/12).
