Tara Murray
While having a successful women’s team, the Truganina Rabbitohs knew they could do more in the female space.
Having had a women’s side in the NRL Victoria competition since 2017, the Rabbitohs have been among the top sides every season.
Club president Tim Watts said they have made a big focus over the off season, to make the club even more female friendly.
He said there had been big growth in the junior space and they wanted to ensure that everyone had a place to play.
“This is the first year we’ve had a junior girls team,” he said. “We had girls in all our teams from under-6s to under-13s.
“With so many girls coming through the system, one of my KPIs [key performance indicators] was to look at getting a junior girls team.
“We’ve managed to get an under-13 team and we’ve got 15 girls ready to go.”
The club will again field a women’s side in the first grade competition with 15 to 20 players already expressing their interest in playing.
He said among that group was a number of new players.
“Hopefully we’ll get a few more in the next few weeks,” he said.
“We won the competition in 2017 and were runners-up in 2019. Last year we were third, but only got half a season.
“This season is really exciting and there’s a lot of new players and fresh young talent.
“There’s still a lot of senior players to show the new girls the ropes.”
Off field the club has a women’s coordinator to ensure that all female players have a female to talk to if needed.
Watts said not many clubs in the competition would have a female coordinator.
Another initiative the club has done this year is designing a jersey, specifically for the females of the club.
“The females at the club didn’t always feel like they had an identity at the club,” he said.
“We thought let’s have a fresh start and asked what colours they wanted on the jersey and we allowed them to design something that they felt comfortable in.”
