If you have been at the hunt for a day of carrying progressivism and an indication of a recreation it appears that evidently at the up, there were not many higher puts to be on Sunday afternoon than Headingley.
While Yorkshire’s County Championship opener towards Leicestershire was once performed to a finale in entrance of a couple of hundred participants on one facet of the Headingley campus, at the different facet of the brand new multimillion-pound stand which punctures the skyline on this specific a part of north Leeds, The data tumbled on a momentous day for girls’s rugby league. For context, only some years in the past, golf equipment corresponding to Leeds and York did not also have girls’s rugby league facets.
In truth, the most productive gamers within the nation have been limited to functioning on native enjoying fields in entrance of a couple of canine walkers, with the ones early trailblazers of the ladies’s recreation at all times fast to recall the stories of clearing damaged glass off the fields ahead of they put their package.
The query was once at all times going to be what kind of a legacy the 2023 Women’s Super League may construct after closing yr’s World Cup: right here, we gained an encouraging opening solution.
“The women’s game has the potential to be the fastest-growing and most exciting part of rugby league,” the Leeds head trainer, Lois Forsell, mentioned. “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, too. 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 heroes, 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.
Nevertheless, 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 honor. “That’s a fact, we’re the first team to pay our players, aren’t we,” the York director of rugby, Lindsay Anfield, mentioned with a grin 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 further emphasized by the growing speculation that 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 Dodd, who scored in their 34‑12 win, will definitely go, with Anfield confirming post‑match: “She’ll announce it when she’s in a position however she’ll for sure move, and we are in the back of her.” Dodd will sign for Canberra, while Roche is likely to join Newcastle.
Participation amongst women below‑16 has higher by way of 200% within the 5 months because the World Cup. Some of the celebs of the next day to come could have been right here to look at those trailblazers and, on an afternoon when bills for gamers in any case changed into a fact, you might want to now not lend a hand however marvel what kind of ceiling the ones younger women who’ve been impressed to soak up the sport might be confronted with in only a few years, given the trajectory this game has loved to this point.