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Blink-and-you'll-miss-it: How seven week Super Rugby Women's season is hurting fringe players
Brittany Mitchell, ESPN Assistant Editor
Apr 25, 2024
When the Waratahs and Fijian Drua run out on Sunday afternoon in the Super Rugby Women's grand final at Ballymore, it'll mark the end of the seven-week season that resembles more of a sprint than a marathon.
It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it situation, with players and fans given little time to build into the rhythm and intensity of the competition. Just like that it's all over and players who've built a presence through the seven weeks of play, but who are unlikely to feature in the Wallaroos Test series throughout the year, will go back to inferior club competitions across the major cities and the 10-month waiting game for the next season begins - or in some cases a move to the NRLW.
After seven editions there's been next to no change across Super W. The introduction of the Fijian Drua in 2022 added an extra dimension and some excitement, breaking up the monotony of the NSW Waratahs' dominance, bringing with it a semifinal weekend and in 2024 one of the most competitive seasons yet. Otherwise, the competition has failed to cross the Tasman as has been discussed for the last three years, it remains a single round-robin competition, and has struggled in the battle ground against both the AFLW and NRLW.
Launching just a year after the AFLW and at the same time as the NRLW, Super W lacks significant growth compared to the AFLW's expansion from eight to all 18 premiership clubs and a 15-week season, and the NRLW's move from four to 10 teams with another two to join from next year, plus an 11-week season. The player drain, meanwhile, saw at least six Waratahs players move to the 13-player code last year, as well as rising Wallaroos star Grace Kemp who made the switch from the Brumbies to the Canberra Raiders.
The idea of growing the Super W competition across the ditch and joining with New Zealand's Super Rugby Aupiki has been floated many times before starting all the way back in 2022, and just like clockwork, as the Aupiki and Super W seasons come to a close, calls for a merger have resurfaced yet again.
There's support from both sides of the ditch with Rugby Australia chief Phil Waugh and New Zealand Rugby boss Mark Robinson all in on the idea. A timeline, though, is hardly forthcoming.
"It's certainly on the radar. I think it's [figuring out] what's the right timeline," Waugh said when asked about a trans-Tasman competition. "I've got a really good relationship with New Zealand Rugby and Mark Robinson; we had a workshop a couple of weeks ago here and on that agenda is the growth of the women's game.
"The opportunity to cross over with our teams with the New Zealand Aupiki is the right conversation to be having and then it's just about the timing and making sure it fits into the calendar."
And on whether there could be a cross-competition finals series any time soon?
"[I] don't want to put a timeline on that."
It's a far cry from former CEO Andy Marinos' comments early last year.
"At a worse case, next year," Marinos said in February last year. "We certainly as RA want to have that in place for next year."
The worst-case scenario now is the competition could shrink by next year with the Melbourne Rebels entering voluntary administration in January and facing the very real possibility of not existing by February 2025. Where that leaves the 32-player squad - including Wallaroos Ash Masters and Grace Hamilton - is yet to be seen and could spell disaster for the small foothold the sport has developed in Victoria over the past seven years.
And while the focus has been on how a trans-Tasman competition could help further develop Wallaroos talent, it can't be ignored how important an extended competition will be for the fringe and lower end players, as well as the growth of the women's game across the country as a whole.
According to Waugh, the women's game has grown 16% across the country at community level, no doubt thanks to the Super W competition and the rise in investment over the last two-years, but there is still so much to do.
Player payments remain marginal for non-Wallaroos contracted players at just $4,000 minimum payment in comparison to the average AFLW player who earns $60k, and in NRLW where the average player earns $37,500 with expectations it will rise to $63k by 2027.
Meanwhile, the Wallabies' World Cup campaign was $2.6m over budget; perhaps that money could have been better spent?
Last year an RA source told ESPN Super Rugby Aupiki's short-term contracts remained the roadblock for a trans-Tasman finals series with players off-contract as soon as the competition ended, which for NZR was hardly an issue due to the strength of the country's domestic Farah Palmer Cup competition. The same can't be said in Australia.
There has, however, been some progress since last year, when Wallaroos players in unison penned an angry social media post, hitting out at a prolonged lack of support and investment from head office.
Since then, the sporting body appears to have taken those lessons on board, signing a new landmark six-year principal partner in Cadbury, and producing one of the Wallaroos' biggest Test calendars which, ESPN understands, will swell even further with Tests to be announced against Ireland and Wales, the games to be played ahead of the WXV series later this year.
"I think a really important lesson was communication and we got to communicate with our athletes. We had the journey mapped out, we certainly had a strategy for investing more into our female athletes, certainly wasn't the communication there and that feeling of investment from the players and as we know it's a player's game, it's a community game, we need to ensure that communication is a lot better than what it was."
But for the hundreds of players who don't reach the national set up, they're left with the scraps.
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