Gold Coast Eagles have announced former All Blacks star Roy Kinikinilau will head its women’s program in 2025

The Gold Coast Eagles will go into 2025 as a pioneering club, having just announced a former All Blacks star as the head of its brand new women’s program designed to bridge the gap between school-aged sevens and premier grades.

The Gold Coast Eagles will go into 2025 as a pioneering club, having just announced former All Black Roy Kinikinilau will head its brand new women’s program designed to bridge the gap between school-aged sevens and premier grades.

Kinikinilau will take the reigns with a plethora of experience both on and off field including the coaching of premier women’s rugby in Wellington, New Zealand.

In his Super Rugby debut season of 2004, the winger scored five tries in nine appearances for the Hurricanes before a stint with the Highlanders in 2006 where he started the season with four tries in four games.

Despite his explosive scoring, Kinikinilau is most renowned for his sevens resume.

He scored 37 tries across seven competitions in 2002-03 and helped New Zealand to win the 2006-07 IRB Sevens World Series.

Roy Kinikinilau tackled by Benn Robinson - Warratahs v Chiefs round 13 at Aussie Stadium

The program

Cobie-Jane ‘CJ’ Morgan and Tania Hala are heading the club’s initiative - a first in 20 years - with support from its new President Penny Stabler and Head of Leadership Grant Steffek.

Morgan, a Queensland Premier Rugby player herself, has been heavily involved with Eagles’ junior pathways in recent years and said this new stage was a testament to the rapid growth seen in 2024.

“We developed a sevens program this year that had the biggest pool of numbers for juniors coming through in terms of club sevens … from under-12 to under-17,” Morgan said.

Currently in Queensland there is no divisional competition for women looking to develop their skills after the age of 16.

The closest equivalent is the ‘Suburban Competition’ which runs alongside Queensland Premier Women’s and is deemed a Division 1 competition.

“We saw a huge gap between sevens and jumping all the way to Premier Rugby when someone turns 16 years old.

“We’re losing a core group of girls … from 16 to 18 (years old) to league because no one is really developing programs that are substantial enough to get them to a Premier Rugby level.

“With all our under-16 players, which we have a lot of down here on the Gold Coast, I would say we’ve got a really good launch pad for future Olympians.

“We just want to provide an opportunity for them to get started so by the time they’re finishing school, they’re ready to play Premier Rugby.”

Penny Stabler announced as Gold Coast Eagles President for 2025

Morgan and Hala approached Steffek, who in years past has provided instrumental support for growing the women's program, and this initiative was no different

“We approached Eagles and got the go ahead,” Morgan said.

“He basically said ‘yes, now what’s the question?’”

The program was formally launched in early December, 2024 and had a sign-up of more than 40 athletes ranging from young sevens players to former Wallaroos.

While the weekly playing squad is capped at 23, the training squad has no limit.

“We’ve over-achieved in terms of that.

“The squad can be as big as we want it to be … we want to get as many girls playing and for us it’s a huge development year to see where the program can go.”

2025 will feature a slight change in process, with a Challenge Cup to be played in the beginning of the season where Suburban and Premier teams will play together for eight weeks before splitting into the two divisions

“We might shock a few teams in the Premier comp because we’ve got such a solid base coming through the Gold Coast.

“We’ve got a lot of young talent coming through which is pretty cool and obviously our past Wallaroos that are based (here) who want to give back to the game.

The initiative runs deeper than boasting young talent, as Morgan pointed out.

“It’s a pioneering year for us and we want sustainability,” she said.

“There are other clubs around the Gold Coast and they’ve got women’s programs, but we’ve just landed an ex-All Blacks sevens player as our head coach, so we’ve got some great people in leadership.

“Sometimes when you go to that Suburban level, it’s anyone’s dad that volunteers.

“But there are strategies we put in place to make sure girls at that level are embracing professionalism from a young age.”