All-girls rugby league clinics to help craft a league of their own
TWO young pioneers of women’s rugby league in western Sydney have started their own all-girls clinics to help craft a better pathway for the next generation.
Penrith
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AFTER battling through to the top of women’s rugby league, Letitia Taylor and Taliah Fuimaono are making it their mission to help inspire the next generation of WNRL stars.
The St Clair locals have established League Of Our Own — an all-girls rugby league clinic aimed at teaching girls the fundamentals of the sport.
The inaugural clinic was held at St Marys Stadium earlier this month.
“The girls really enjoyed it,” Taylor, 20, said.
Fuimaono, 19, added: “There was a big variety of girls — some that have played for a few years, some that have never played. We started off with just drills covering all the little things: tackling, passing, fitness. Just teaching the fundamentals.”
Both girls are shining examples of how far the women’s game has come in western Sydney.
After growing up in Oztag and touch football, the girls played their first game for St Clair Comets when they were about 15.
“We were in one of maybe two or three teams,” Taylor said. “We were playing against teams from a while away, it wasn’t a local comp.
“As the years have gone on, the whole Penrith comp has grown to be absolutely massive.”
Now the girls are part of the elite NSW Women’s Premiership competition — Taylor with St Marys and Fuimaono with Mounties.
Having achieved their dreams, they want to make it easier for the next generation of female rugby league footballers to follow in their footsteps.
“We’ve always wanted to do something like this,” Fuimaono said.
“We’ve already had a couple of people message us and ask to do some clinics with their club, St Clair and Emu Plains have asked us to come out and do some stuff with their girls.
“We want to try to give back to western Sydney as much as we can because its where we started and we didn’t have anything like this when we were playing.”