The Sunday Telegraph went behind the scenes as the Roosters took on the Broncos in an epic NRLW clash
IT was a night of big hits, broken thumbs, backline shifts, questionable tactics, rousing speeches, even teeth being removed. The Sunday Telegraph went backstage with the NRLW Roosters - and it was very rugby league.
Women's sport
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SIMAIMA Taufa has been on field only minutes when the call goes out. Shoot at her knee
At first, the Roosters skipper thinks that maybe she misheard.
Like surely they wouldn’t, would they?
“But the Brisbane players, they knew about my medial,” Taufa says later, motioning to a heavily strapped right knee. “And they targeted it.”
Not just once either.
Instead, over and over, a group of Broncos players — some of them friends Taufa has played alongside for Australia — shooting at said joint in an attack to rival Johnny being ordered to sweep the leg in Karate Kid.
“And take nothing away from Brisbane’s win,” she continues afterwards. “But deliberately targeting a knee, openly talking about it on field … I don’t think that’s right.”
And no, maybe it isn’t.
But geez, it’s very rugby league.
And the fact this new women’s competition needed only a fortnight to get here … well, who knows where this glorious beast will end up?
Indeed, to better understand this newest of competitions, The Sunday Telegraph finds itself this particular Friday night with a Backstage Pass to the Roosters.
Think team meetings, sheds, even a chair on the sideline — and their Allianz Stadium match.
And what transpires is an evening as diverse as the body shapes of all 17 players.
A wonderful elixir of big hits, broken thumbs, backline shifts, questionable tactics, rousing speeches, even teeth being removed to play.
But what were you expecting?
For while promotion for this shiny, new premiership has been full of glowing colour pieces — and fair enough given its magnitude — you should know there also exists a heartbeat all intensity, aggression and grit.
So again, sweep the leg Johnny.
For while you mightn’t know much about 24-year-old Taufa, Brisbane do.
Aware this backrower isn’t simply the reigning Dally M medallist, but a Jillaroo who only three nights earlier took home their RLPA Player of the Year.
So attacking her bung medial, it’s something of a compliment, right?
“Maybe?” Taufa shrugs afterwards. “I’m not sure.”
Regardless, you should know that while one Rooster wages her battle — risking a ruptured ACL with every run — over by the sideline another, prop Ruan Sims, is getting her right thumb strapped because, well, it just broke.
“But I’m good,” she tells concerned staffers. “Strap it and I’m right.”
So is this what it means to play like a girl?
Yep, partly.
Just as it’s the fend on Roosters weapon/winger Taleena Simon. And the vision of Maddie Studdon, that little halfback who sacrificed her job to be here.
As for backrower Tazmin Gray, she isn’t so much the younger sister of Canberra winger Jordan Rapana, as the mum who played Origin five months after giving birth to child number two.
Importantly, it’s also the mood of the Roosters sheds when, on full-time, and after having been dusted 14-4, they sit about all bowed heads, ice packs, even tears.
Before kick-off, tunes blared from a beat box.
But not now.
No, now things are so quiet that when someone inadvertently steps onto a couple of ice cubes — likely dropped from a bag already pressed against the elbow of prop Elianna Walton — the ensuing crunch sounds like a gunshot.
But again, very rugby league.
Same deal Taufua churning through 14 runs with that dodgy medial. Or Sims playing on with her broken thumb.
And how do you reckon Kylie Hilder felt about losing, given the gutsy No.9 drives a 600km round-trip from Forster, three times a week, simply to train?
“Kylie has a couple of young sons, too,” Roosters centre Isabelle Kelly explains.
“And when you’ve got mums sacrificing time with their kids, when you’ve got players flying in from Brisbane and Maddie Studdon giving up her job to be here … loses are devastating.”
Celebrating her 22nd birthday this Thursday, Kelly is effectively the fresh, new face of the WNRL.
An outstanding Central Coast athlete, she can deadlift 130kg, squat six repetitions of 115kg and, according to Roosters coach Adam Hartigan, “is our player who could handle NRL training sessions”.
Against Brisbane, no player anywhere will run further than Kelly (129m), nor exceed her combined six tackle busts and linebreaks.
The left centre also pushes through one Bronco for a try, rag dolls another into touch and, afterwards, insists far better players are coming.
And it’s because, yes, these women are earning up to $9000 for this September series.
Just as the Tricolours aren’t only paying to fly in Queenslanders, but create a program that with everything from GPS chips to a designated player’s lounge, is valued by CEO Scott Bennetts in the “hundreds of thousands”.
Still, call it a start.
“Because when it comes to developing footy skill,” Roosters assistant coach Dean Widders explains, “so much happens in your late teens.
“Yet most women here, they didn’t even have anywhere to play at that age.
“So it’s when the teenagers coming through now arrive, the girls in our new elite pathways … that’s when you’ll really see a product.”
Sims agrees.
“In the next five years we’ll get girls who’ve been playing continuously since under sixes,” Sims says. “Girls with talent that far surpasses anything we’re doing.”
Which isn’t to say the skill is lacking now. Nor the grit.
And forget that old cliche about injuries putting mums off league. It’s the bloody mums doing much of the damage.
Take Hilder, who at 42 tackles like she were born for nothing else. Or utility Nita Maynard, who weighs 60kg and fells rivals almost twice her size.
And all of this before returning to Taufa, who initially arrives at Roosters HQ around 3pm all pronounced limp and knee wrapped like King Tut.
Yes, the joint hurts. Yes, movement is limited.
And yes, the skipper knows she risks rupturing an ACL with every run.
“But that’s the risk I’m willing to take for my teammates,” she shrugs. “That’s footy.”
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