Rugby Australia is targeting professional contracts for the Wallaroos by 2025 as part of a plan to overhaul Super W high-performance structures and club pathways to retain the game’s best talent.
The Wallaroos will kick off their World Cup campaign against New Zealand at what officials expect will be a sold-out Eden Park on Saturday, but Australia’s players are relying on per diem payments after leaving work for the duration of the five-week tour.
RA is working with the Rugby Union Players Association on a new player payment structure amid plans to help Super W clubs with their own contracting systems and high-performance units, with private equity talks to play a key role on the road to professionalism.
Talks with potential investors are ongoing, with any capital injected into rugby set to accelerate plans to strengthen club pathways and build a sustainable contracting model.
RA chief executive Andy Marinos says going from “zero to 110” is wishful thinking with officials adopting an holistic approach to transforming the national women’s program.
Marinos says RA’s advances towards professionalism for its elite female 15-a-side players will be a series of steps rather than one giant leap, but hopes a strategic approach will strengthen their ranks to give the Wallaroos a genuine shot at winning a World Cup on home soil in 2029.
Bienne Terita and the Wallaroos are preparing for the opening match of the World Cup.Credit:Getty
“I’d certainly like for us as a game to be in a position where we have a contracted base by the time we get to 2025,” Marinos told the Herald.
“I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to build the foundation of the structures around the Wallaroos and the Super W competition. That’s certainly what our longer-term thinking is. We ultimately want to make sure we can raise the standard and get the game up to a professional level in the future.
“There’s a lot of international rugby for the girls to aspire to but we can’t realistically be successful in that if we don’t have a very strong Super W competition underpinning that, and a club system feeding into it.
“It’s important to get the Super W competition humming away, bringing in commercial partners, bringing in strategic investment from Rugby Australia and other sources to raise the standard and give these girls the opportunity to do it more than on a part-time basis as we move towards these tent-pole moments.”
Marinos says there is a desire within RA’s ranks to lengthen the Super W season – which will again include the Fijiana Drua next year – but those ideas hinge on investment in support staff and financial assistance for players balancing rugby with motherhood or work.
Overall female participation for females in rugby is up 6.8 per cent year-on-year, with those playing in 15-a-side competitions up 22 per cent.
Part of that boost is driven by the success of Australia’s Commonwealth Games and World Series-winning women’s sevens program. Marinos says their success is an example of what can be achieved with full-time contracts and hopes to replicate the same in the 15s space on the road to the 2029 World Cup, which caps off a golden period for rugby in Australia with the men’s World Cup due on these shores two years earlier.
“We’re certainly going to want to eclipse whatever gets achieved in 2025 in England, in terms of the promotion, the marketing and the presentation of the game,” Marinos said.
“When I look at our girls, Super W is critically important. We’ve got to build the game from the bottom up. We’ve got to get the pathways right, we’ve got to get the participation levels right. We’ve got to get as many girls playing [club rugby] as possible, and feeding into that Super W system and into the Wallaroos.
“I’ve gone back and looked at the women’s program in 2018 and how it has progressed through to where we are now, I think we’ve made some really positive steps. Is it optimal, is it where we want to be? No, and that’s the opportunity for us as the game here in Australia.”
Watch all the action from the Women’s Rugby World Cup from New Zealand with every match streaming ad-free, live and on demand on Stan Sport. Kicks off on Saturday with South Africa v France (12pm AEDT), England v Fiji (2.30pm AEDT) and Wallaroos v Black Ferns (4.45pm AEDT).
