One year and six months ago, Wallaroos star Piper Duck joined the majority of her international teammates in telling Rugby Australia that enough was enough.
Through coordinated social media posts, the players called out the governing body for what they said was a lack of funding for the women’s game. Ahead of the upcoming World Cup in August, Duck believes the team is ready to compete with the game’s best after receiving the necessary support.
In August 2023, Wallaroos players were critical of the lack of full-time contracts and a full-time coach as Jay Tregonning juggled his role as a teacher with coaching the team part-time.
The Wallaroos protested after it was revealed that some partners of Wallabies players had been flown to Sydney at the expense of RA to farewell the team before the World Cup in France.
There are now 45 women’s players contracted across three performance tiers, with players in the highest bracket being able to earn up to $72,458, in addition to their Super W club payments.
The majority of Wallaroos can now compete and train as full-time athletes, although some players still work part-time by choice.
One year ago, RA appointed the first full-time Wallaroos coach, former England captain Jo Yapp, who led the team to victory in the WXV 2 competition in October and qualified for the World Cup.
Speaking at the launch of Super W 2025, Duck said the protest was “something that needed to be done at the time”, and she believes the increased investment and support now gives the team a genuine chance to compete at the World Cup.
“There has been that upkeep and investment into us … we always carried ourselves as professional athletes, but we are now professional athletes, and that is the standard, and we want to perform,” Duck said.
“We want to succeed, and we now have these resources where we can. We always could anyway, but now it’s just we want to perform, we want to show that we didn’t just stand up there and talk.
“We want to show we stuck there, and we went we are going to perform. We are doing everything we can in our power to be the best rugby team we can be for our country.”
Piper Duck meets with fans at Wednesday’s Super W launch at North Sydney Oval.Credit: Getty Images
Some of Australia’s best sevens players have signed up for their chance to play in the World Cup in England, including world-class talents such as Maddison Levi and Charlotte Caslick.
Caslick and Levi have signed up with the Queensland Reds for the Super W competition, but will also play sevens for Australia.
Levi is recovering from a thumb injury and hopes to return to play in the Hong Kong and Singapore sevens tournaments in March and April, which would rule her out of Super W ahead of the World Cup.
Levi hasn’t played a single game of elite 15-a-side rugby, but Yapp said a lack of Super W rugby would not necessarily preclude the current women’s sevens player of the year from being in the selection mix.
“No, it doesn’t rule her out,” Yapp said. “We just have to find other ways and means of seeing what opportunities we can find to give herself a chance.”
Levi’s pace, power and scoring threat in sevens are likely to see her compete for one of the Wallaroos’ wing slots against tried and tested players Maya Stewart and Desiree Miller.
Yapp believes the introduction of sevens players to the Wallaroos set-up will ultimately create a far stronger squad with competition for places the fiercest it has ever been.
“Through all of this, we’re trying to be transparent with the 15s girls,” Yapp said. “We’ve got some incredible players and athletes in the 15s program.
Hera-Barb Malcolm Heke of the Western Force, Siokapesi Palu of the ACT Brumbies, Piper Duck of the NSW Waratahs, Bitila Tawake of the Fijian Drua and Ivania Wong of the Queensland Reds at the launch of Super Rugby W at North Sydney Oval.Credit: Getty Images
“What it’s allowing us to do is increase the depth of our program, which means there’s competition for places that makes it more challenging and Super W now is a massive opportunity for these girls to show their form.”
The Wallaroos will travel to take on Fiji in May ahead of the World Cup and the Waratahs take on the Fijian Drua next Friday in the first game of Super W.
The Fiji Rugby Union recently sacked former women’s captain Laijipa Naulivou as director of rugby after she said the women’s game had a “gay problem”.
“Those who played with me know that I do not condone being gay for women in rugby,” Naulivou was quoted as saying in an interview with the Fiji Sun newspaper.
Former Wallaroos captain Duck said rugby prides itself on its inclusivity.
“The reason I love rugby is the inclusivity of both sexualities, religion, gender, body type, everything,” Duck said. “We are an inclusive environment, and that’s why I love the game.”
