Pacific Championships Jillaroos team news: Ali Brigginshaw set for return ahead of Kiwis showdown
Star playmaker Ali Brigginshaw convinced doctors she is fit to play against New Zealand in the Pacific Championships despite undergoing post-season surgery on a severely injuring her finger.
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It took a willing surgeon and special titanium plates but Ali Brigginshaw returns for the Jillaroos a fortnight earlier than typical.
The Australia co-captain suffered a bad break in a finger on her left hand during the NRLW season, playing through the pain for the last two weeks of the competition as she put off a necessary operation to chase a premiership with Brisbane.
It happened in a tackle while playing Cronulla in round 8, but she waited until after a semi-final loss to the Sharks to go under the knife.
The tendon was caught within the break itself, meaning surgery was inevitable, but she opted to play with painkilling injections instead.
That was just three weeks ago.
“It’s a six week injury but I’ve convinced the doctors that I can play, the surgeon put some extra love into it, some extra titanium plates and screws and stuff. It’ll be good to go,” she said as the Jillaroos prepare to face New Zealand in Christchurch on Sunday.
“It was just in a tackle, it split the bottom of my finger in half, pretty much.
“I thought it was dislocated.
“I could have kept playing with it broken how it was, I had pain injections in it the whole time.”
Desperate to play for the Jillaroos, Brigginshaw devised a plan with her surgeon to return to the field in four weeks, rather than the standard six.
“We’d spoken about a plan when I had the operation, the surgeon was all on board so he put a particular titanium plate in there,” she said.
It will be a huge boost for the Jillaroos ahead of Sunday’s grudge match against the Kiwi Ferns.
The star half was sidelined for a monster 84-0 win over Papua New Guinea in Friday’s Pacific Championships, with centre Tiana Penitani named in the halves as a replacement.
The Jillaroos are stinging for revenge after a shock 12-6 loss last year ended their seven-year winning streak and sent a warning through the Australian camp.
The result flipped the women’s international game on its head and sets up a blockbuster rematch between the two powerhouses on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Tongan duo Pani Hopoate and Manilita Takapautolo have both received a warning for grade one dangerous throw charges out of Saturday’s 30-16 loss to Samoa.
The loss bumped Tonga out of the Pacific Championships, with Samoa to face the winner of Fiji v Cook Islands in a 2026 Rugby League World Cup qualifier.
Originally published as Pacific Championships Jillaroos team news: Ali Brigginshaw set for return ahead of Kiwis showdown
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