NRL Schoolboys Cup Live Stream: State’s best female players ready to kick off NRL Schoolgirls Cup
The future has arrived. The best female athletes from eight of the state’s top rugby league nurseries will kick off the NRL Schoolgirls Cup in 2023. Find out how to watch the finals LIVE.
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“The girls are just as good as the boys at Hills Sports High, and now we have the chance to prove it.”
With those words, young five-eighth Olivia Va’alele sparked the excitement for the inaugural NRL School Girls Cup season.
The competition, which pits the best eight schools across NSW head-to-head across three rounds and finals, will be a watershed moment for rugby league and the growth of the women’s game.
KommunityTV will exclusively live stream every match of the NRL School Girls Cup finals series as part of our comprehensive coverage of the schools competitions in 2023.
While schools like Hunter Sports High and Matraville Sports High have included girls in their rugby league programs for several years, the NRL School Girls Cup will be the first elite schools competition for female athletes.
It comes as the NRL expands the elite competition, the NRLW, to 10 teams in 2023.
“At the moment with female rugby league, it is growing in the elite space and weekend footy, and starting to grow at community level,” NRL community engagement officer Jono Dallas said.
“Schools in general are really good avenues to give boys or girls a chance to try sport.
“This competition is catering for girls who have played footy at school for a number of years, to give them a pathway to take to the elite level. Girls that may not have that opportunity to play at the elite level on weekends, this is an opportunity for them.
“School landscape will grow the pool of girls at all levels which will flow into community level, elite level and the game at the top.”
Hills Sports High and Hunter Sports High ushered in a new dawn for the sports in the first match of the NRL School Girls Cup season, with Hills Sports High edging their rivals 14-0 in a tense clash.
Hunter Sports leader Sophie Smith, who plays in the Newcastle Knights Tarsha Gale Cup squad, said the NRL School Girls Cup was about opportunity.
“To have the same chance as the boys, the same opportunities to play and perform, all the girls are loving it,” Smith said.
“The talent we see now across the state, girls footy is just building and building. The stigma behind the success and talent in the schoolboys competition is amazing, and now we have that same opportunity. It is so empowering.”
Smith said she hoped having the NRL School Girls Cup finals live streamed would help inspire the next generation to get involved in the sport.
“This competition will play such a great role in the further development of the NRLW,” she said.
For Hills Sports playmaker Va’alele, who has been forced to play rugby union as a school sport, the arrival of the NRL School Girls Cup has come at a perfect time.
Va’alele has just signed a two-year contract to join the Bulldogs junior pathways program.
“I am finally excited to represent my school in rugby league,” she said. “Girls footy at our school has always been rugby sevens, but most of our girls have been playing league for their whole life.
“It is unreal to have an opportunity to play the sport we love.
“This will open so many more doors, give us more opportunities and improve our game so much.”
Originally published as NRL Schoolboys Cup Live Stream: State’s best female players ready to kick off NRL Schoolgirls Cup
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