The world of sport spins fast, as match follows tournament follows season in a dizzying cycle of sporting entertainment. So when should Australia care? When should the collective head look up from the school lunches and phone bills of the everyday and tune in?
The “underdog” Wallaroos begin their Women’s Rugby World Cup campaign in England this weekend, and this one means something. Just ask fans of the host nation’s Red Roses, who have already sold out the World Cup final in anticipation of the nation’s first title since 2010. The 82,000 capacity crowd at Twickenham will be the largest in women’s rugby history.
Ask Wallaroos captain Siokapesi Palu, who after witnessing the huge interest in England this week expressed hope that soon Australia would follow. “It’s good to see with our own eyes and with the lens of where women’s sport probably isn’t as visible back home than it is here,” she said. “It’s a great benchmark in the standards that we want.”
Ask Australian veterans Arabella McKenzie and Emily “Horse” Robinson, who both missed out on a place in the Wallaroos squad in pre-tournament selection shocks. Rather than retreat in disappointment, they have thrust themselves into the spotlight by starting a podcast they joke is partly for counselling.
“It’s an incredible event coming up, and we want to really spotlight the Wallaroos and the other rugby teams and the best players from around the world,” McKenzie said on the Back Row Seats, part of the Female Athlete Project.
“This is the first World Cup in nine years that I haven’t been to, so it’s a lot to take in,” Robinson said. “But it’s positive that we can shine a light on our mates and the game that we both still love.”
Ask Jaime Fernandez, father of Wallaroos lock Ashley and Rugby Australia’s manager of women’s high performance, who followed up a pre-tournament interview with a heart-felt text message about how this group was “special”, and how their sacrifices and progress warranted more attention.
Fernandez won a silver medal for Australia in the men’s eight at Sydney 2000, and came to Rugby Australia from a decade in elite rowing in 2023. It was part of an expansion of investment undertaken to improve the performance of the Wallaroos, who are currently ranked No 6 in the world but whose reputation trails well behind international benchmarks of England, New Zealand and Canada.
A year before Fernandez arrived, Rugby Australia had won the right to host the 2029 World Cup, as part of the sport’s so-called golden decade. “There was this real energy and drive to move and shift, in the first instance, the XVs game forward from where it was,” he said. “It was just this perfect alignment of things occurring for us to give it a kickstart.”
Look at the list of the most experienced Wallaroos, and you get some indication of the progress and expanded schedule of the past few years. Headed by Ash Marsters with 41 caps, nine of the 10 most capped are currently still playing.
In the years before Fernandez came in, the women’s XVs programme relied on club and state programmes to develop talent, with few national staff. Now, a typical annual programme will involve 10 or more Tests, as well as tours and training camps. Around 40 players are now contracted by Rugby Australia in XVs, alongside 20 or so in sevens, with the best players earning close to $100,000 per year.
Emerging fullback Caitlyn Halse said more time with coaches has allowed her to improve her kicking and decision-making. “I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better at kicking and more knowledge of kicking, like when to pull the trigger on a 50-22, or when to kick long or do a high bomb or something like that,” she said.
Halse is one of several young talents pursuing XVs despite the lure of women’s sevens, which gained national recognition when Australia won gold at Rio in 2016. Thanks to government and Australian Olympic Committee support and the high profile of the global sevens tour, that programme has been a leader for local women’s rugby for more than a decade. But as XVs builds momentum, Rugby Australia is working to bridge the gap between the two formats.
The sevens representatives were given a chance to fast track their development in XVs this year. Only Tia Hinds made it all the way to the Wallaroos World Cup squad, with some facing injury and others withdrawing from consideration. Former Wallaby Mat Rogers, the manager of sevens star Maddi Levi, has been critical of the process, saying the transitioning players were “set up to fail” this year.
Fernandez said a historic separation between the programmes and competing calendars has prompted a lower level of cooperation in the past, but now there’s a “genuine intent” to work together and by 2029 a combined squad could be a reality. “It’s just going to take some time and patience to work our way through that,” he said. “Ideally, we have a group of players who could play across both that train together, prepare together, and we are then more targeted around our benchmark events.”
But for now, the Wallaroos’ focus is on the first pool match against Samoa this week, screened at prime time on Saturday night in the eastern states. Fernandez hopes they enjoy it. “They feel the weight of expectation, they feel pressure,” he said. “But this shouldn’t feel like work, this should be something that you truly just have a smile on your dial when you run out.”
