The NRLW finals start here … but have the finalists already been decided?

How do you prepare to play against a team that has won every game they’ve played this season and every game they’ve ever played against your team, including last year’s grand final?

That’s the challenge Cronulla captain Tiana Penitani will face if the Sharks beat the Cowboys on Saturday in the first week of the NRLW finals.

Penitani will have to lead her squad into battle against the Roosters, an assignment that has proved mission impossible for every other team this season. And even if they win that, they’ll likely face the Brisbane Broncos – who have beaten everyone bar the Roosters – in the grand final. Such is the disparity between the top two teams and everyone else in the NRLW this season.

“I think when you look back to 2023 when there was expansion, it looks very similar to what this year looks like,” Penitani said at Tuesday’s NRLW finals launch. “There are always going to be little teething issues when it comes to expansion and clubs losing really big key players, clubs being able to retain their key players, which creates that disparity.

“But I guess it just speaks volumes on the really successful clubs and how well they run their programs for girls to want to stay there, and it just pushes more emphasis on us growing our development pathways ... to try and close that gap.”

This season has seen more players make their debut than in any year since the NRLW was established in 2018. But waiting for development pathways to bear fruit doesn’t solve an issue impacting the competition right now.

Tiana Penitani Gray at the NRLW finals launch on Tuesday.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

“I think that disparity will be sorted out when the game goes … fulltime and there’s a salary cap in place,” Penitani said.

Roosters captain Isabelle Kelly, who steered the Tricolours to the minor premiership after going through season undefeated, was presented with the new Nellie Doherty Shield on Tuesday morning.

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo on Tuesday paid tribute to Doherty, a pioneer of the women’s game who in 1921 wrote to the NSWRL with friend Mollie Cane asking for permission to form a women’s rugby league competition.

“They were knocked back by the committee at that time, but Nellie Doherty kept going,” Abdo said. “She kept writing letters, she kept fronting up to the powers at the NSWRL until eventually they relented, and they sanctioned the first ever women’s clubs and women’s competition.”

Kelly said she had heard the talk of the disparity in the league this season, but that the Roosters’ sole focus was on maintaining and raising their own high standards.

“I think what I’ve loved this year is we actually haven’t focused too much on other teams when doing review or anything like that and that comes from [coach John Strange],” she said. “He’s really made sure that you know as a team we’re focusing on us, and we’re building with that.

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Abdo said it was too early to say whether expansion had created an imbalance in the league and pointed to increased viewership and live attendance across women’s games as evidence the NRLW remains attractive to new fans.

“In any given year you’re going to have some teams that are top of the ladder, some teams that are bottom of the ladder and now we’ve got a final series and let’s see what happens because really it’s knockout football,” Abdo said.

“I think it’s too early to talk about the impact of balance on the competition because this competition is quite dynamic it continues to grow and evolve and the quality of the football and the quality of the footballers is increasing.”

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