Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) chair Peter V’landys says a Papua New Guinean team will not enter the NRLW until the league is confident it can be competitive.
The Pacific nation had its NRL dream realised when the Australian and PNG Prime Ministers met in Sydney on Thursday to announce a team will join the league after two years of negotiations.
A PNG men’s team will enter the NRL in 2028, propped up by $600 million in Australian taxpayer funding.
But less certain is the future of a mooted women’s team.
The ARLC has largely taken a slow-and-steady approach to NRLW expansion.
The league is reluctant to aim for parity with the 17 men’s-team competition without first growing its talent pool.
It is adopting the same outlook towards expansion into PNG, where formal women’s rugby league programs are lagging behind the men.
“It was never going to be with the men (in 2028), it was always going to be a stage situation,” V’Landys said.
“Everything we do, we want to make sure they’re competitive from day one and we want to make sure the women are competitive.”
While PNG’s domestic men’s competition was founded in 1990, a corresponding semi-professional women’s tournament was only contested for the first time this year.
The gap between the national PNG women’s team and its rivals was laid bare in the recent Pacific Championships where Australia thrashed the Orchids 84-0.
The Orchids went on to lose 36-0 to New Zealand later in the tournament.
The ARLC has not yet announced public plans for NRLW expansion beyond 2025, when the inclusion of Canterbury and the Warriors will grow the league to 12 teams.
But unrepresented NRL clubs including Penrith, South Sydney and Melbourne have previously flagged their hopes of being considered for expansion.
AAP
