10 Jul 2024

'We were all blown away': England players embrace Jillaroos challenge in Vegas

England players were shocked when coach Stuart Barrow told them the team would be going to Las Vegas to play Australia in an historic women’s international at Allegiant Stadium on March 1.

The fixture will be the penultimate match of a quadruple header as the NRL again kicks off the season in Las Vegas with an expanded offering, which also includes a Super League clash between Wigan and Warrington.

After the success of this year’s venture, the NRL wanted to include a women’s match and Jillaroos players made it clear that they wanted to play England as the two nations had not met since the 2017 World Cup in Australia.

Barrow broke the news to his players at a training camp before their June 29 clash with France in Toulouse and captain Jodie Cunningham said they were stunned.

“Women’s Rugby League has been on an amazing journey for the last decade – and now we’re heading for Vegas,” Cunningham said.

“I think it’s fantastic that the NRL have recognised the importance of the women’s game in this way.

“We all watched the NRL games in Vegas at the start of this season and it was so exciting to see the impact they made.

“Now we’re going to be out there in 2025, taking on the Jillaroos. That’s a massive challenge for us – but when our coach Stu Barrow mentioned this to the girls at our training camp before we went to France last week, we were all blown away.”

 

 

Jillaroos centre Isabelle Kelly, the inaugural women’s IRL Golden Boot winner in 2018, said Australian players had been disappointed that they didn’t play England at the World Cup in 2022.

The Las Vegas fixture will count as part of the historic Ashes series between the two nations, which will continue when England travel to Australia at the end of the 2025 season.

“At the last World Cup we were hoping they were going to land in the semis with us and we were going to be able to play them,” Kelly said.

“It's always been that kind of rivalry with the English women, and they feel the same about us.

“They’ve got the Super League and we’ve got the NRWL so there’s two massive comps and we’ve always wanted to play each other.”

Kelly, Kezie Apps and Ali Brigginshaw are the only survivors in the Jillaroos team from the last clash between the two nations - a 38-0 win by the 2017 World Cup hosts at Shark Park - while Cunningham, Emily Rudge and Amy Hardcastle played in the England team.

 

 

The NRLW was established the following season and the Women’s Super League has also developed into a semi-professional competition.

“That World Cup [in 2017] was the pushing force for the NRLW and I think with the chance to play England in Vegas we can make the game even bigger,” Sky Blues co-captain Isabel Kelly said.

 

“I think it adds a little bit more to how special the Jillaroos jersey is and we can take the jersey to another country and promote what we can do as a national team.

 

“To represent the Jillaroos is the pinnacle of our sport and it would be incredible to go over to go over there and be in the first team to play women’s rugby league in America.”

 

With English stars Hollie-May Dodd (Raiders), Francesca Goldthorp (Cowboys) and Georgia Roche (Knights) joining the NRLW last season, Kelly said there was debate about the strengths of the rival competitions. 

 

“In the World Cup, we watched nearly all of the England games and they've got a lot of strike, with their halves and their centres," Kelly said.

 

“They've got a lot of great players, they know of us and we know of them, but we haven’t had the chance to play them.

 

“They’ve got some great athletes over there, and I think we've got a lot of a lot of strong athletes here playing in the NRLW, so we want to test ourselves against them.”