Valkyries and Tigresses

New is always better

Expansion is always a contentious and endlessly-debated topic when it comes to professional sports. The NBA, for instance, has spoken about potential expansion for years, with Mexico City, Las Vegas and a return to Seattle all mooted.

Closer to home though, the Dolphins in the NRL men’s competition have spent the season proving doubters wrong, a patchwork squad fighting on the fringes of finals contention.

Both those examples are just one or two teams entering established competitions with hundreds of ready-made players in a pool and entrenched pathways. What’s occurred in the NRLW this season, with rapid expansion of the competition from six teams to ten is expansion on a scale not usually seen outside the formative years of pro sports leagues.

It was a bold endeavour fraught with risk.

Were there enough players at the level to sustain a 67% increase in the competition without diluting it?

Turns out, and not to go the early crow after two weeks, but the answer is a tentative yet hopeful yes.

Expansion is a vital part of continuing to grow the women’s game and allowing it to stand on its own two feet, and the progress made in the early stages of the women’s Canberra Raiders and Wests Tigers is a healthy sign of the game moving forward.

In sports, you only have your first moments once. That first run out, the first win, the first rendition of the team song as water bottles fly around a dingy changing room. It’s a journey you only tread once, living in the moment is of utmost importance.

At the end of the day though, it’s a results-based business, and we’re here to talk about some special performances from the lady Raiders (henceforth referred to as the Valkyries) and the lady Tigers (henceforth referred to as the Tigresses).

Let’s start with the Valkyries, and what a special moment it was to watch them run out to a parochial home crowd for the first time in the nation’s capital, coming up against a Roosters side packed with representative talent.

People were cautiously optimistic about the Valkyries chances this season, off the back of some shrewd recruitment headlined by Queensland half Zahara Temara and NSW middle forward Simaima Taufa, but after a debut win the week prior, the Valkyries were expected to be handed something of a reality check from a side boasting several Origin stars.

And yet, the Roosters were largely ineffectual, passive, monstered and completely overrun. Their swathe of representative forwards, including Olivia Kernick, Keeley Davis and Keilee Joseph were all held to well below their usual standards, while Millie Boyle played somewhat of a lone hand.

Tarryn Aiken, maybe the best player in the women’s game at the moment, off a masterful display in the Origin series for Queensland, was rendered borderline invisible by a swarming and sliding Raiders defence, her 128 run metres hugely inflated by a fortuitous trap and scrap full field try to give the Roosters a slight sniff in the second half.

The Valkyries were composed and direct with the ball, leaning on their experience through the middle in Taufa, but it was Grace Kemp that was the true storyline of the day. Her story was told on the broadcast and again by Valkyries coach Darrin Borthwick on full time, how Kemp was recruited from rugby as a special talent but a piece of clay that needed to be moulded, honed, refined.

That piece of clay ran over the Roosters for the first ever Valkyries home try, and consistently had the Roosters on the back foot as the Valkyries pressed over the advantage line. Kemp and Taufa in particular allowed the Valkyries to play expansive footy off the platform they laid, with Cheyelle Robins-Reti in particular a beneficiary of the space afforded out wide off the back of strong middle forward play.

And while the Valkyries tried to give the game away late in a fashion fans of the mens Raiders have become all too accustomed to over the years, they’d thrown the Roosters off their game enough that Monalisa Soliola’s nail in the coffin ensured a happy home debut.

Meanwhile, a day later, at the hallowed turf of Belmore, the Tigresses were taming the creatures of the sea from Cronulla, and while it isn’t a game that too many purists will look back on fondly for the expansive attacking footy on offer, it did highlight some of the good work the Tigresses are doing.

Botille Vette-Welsh has been one of my favourite players in the women’s game for a while now with her explosive running ability and off the cuff creativity at fullback, and her signing was always going to be one of the foundations on which the Tigresses were built.

Yet, in this game, Bo took somewhat of a back seat (as much as a fullback running for nearly 200 metres can take a back seat, although she did blow a certain try by not passing to her support, oh well).

Instead, it was the work of the Tigresses forwards, especially Sarah Togatuki, that suffocated the Sharks and never really allowed them a platform into the game. A lot of these Tigress girls played together in the Harvey Norman Women’s Premiership, so the continuity was there, but a lot of the noise in the preseason was about the one player they didn’t get over the line for their inaugural NRLW season from their HNWP side in Jess Sergis.

Somewhat reductive to the impact of players like Togatuki and Kezie Apps, but also to who I thought was the star performer in this game, winger Jakiya Whitfeld, and no I’m not just saying that because she broke the run metres record (a fact that was only brought up 826 times on the broadcast, and also…she didn’t - Simaima Taufa had 300+ in a game for Parramatta in 2022).

Everytime the Tigresses shifted left, Whitfeld looked dangerous, constantly grinding out post contact metres and winning the point of contact to allow the Tigers to then shift back right off her. It was a dominant winger’s performance, with her work in yardage and coming off her own line more impressive than burning Emma Tonegato to streak away off a loose ball to ice the game.

The Tigers left edge looked dangerous all game with Apps, Whitfeld and centre Leianne Tufuga, and in all honesty they could’ve scored a couple more tries down that edge with some more precision, which should hopefully come with repetition at the top level and continuity.

One thing moving forward though is the interchange usage from Brett Kimmorley. Neither Tigers half played the full game, with Losana Lutu coming on in the second half to play in the halves for 20 minutes.

Interestingly, it seemed like Lutu assumed the role of dominant playmaker in her time on the park, especially in the kicking game, and I do wonder moving forward if she takes the starting halfback spot off Emily Curtain, or if Lutu’s versatility actually hinders her path to regular footy as Kimmorley opts to keep her on the bench as not only a spare utility, but also as a lock forward if needed.

The other side of the interchange coin is the forwards. Togatuki and fellow starting prop Christian Pio are big minute forwards, along with Apps and starting lock Najvada George. Outside of Sophie Curtain, none of the other bench forwards played more than 20 minutes a game.

The Tigresses have started well, but I wonder if those minutes from the likes of Togatuki and Pio will start to reduce a little bit as the season goes on to keep them fresh, especially as now it looks like a finals charge is on the horizon if this form holds.

Both the Valkyries and Tigresses aren’t your traditional expansion clubs. Both recruited externally with a plan, and both sides are great stories. The Tigresses having built a lot of their squad from their HNWP system, while the Valkyries having the majority of their squad away from family and friends, with only each other.

The early success of these two clubs is a real boon for NRLW expansion, with the Tigresses undefeated and the Valkyries at 1-1. The two sides now clash in what has the potential to be an exciting and expansive fixture in Round 3 down in Canberra on Sunday afternoon, both sides unchanged coming off impressive wins.

Long may the Valkyries march and the Tigresses roar.

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A FAVOUR TO ASK

With Twitter sucking the proverbial right now, it’s getting harder to get these articles out there and seen outside of the circles I already travel in. If you do enjoy these and know someone else who might, please consider passing it along.

We’re so close to 200 subscribers, a number I thought would be impossible to reach this season as a random on the internet nattering about footy, so the support is truly appreciated and humbling.

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SCHEDULING NOTE

You might be wondering why this post came out on a Wednesday morning and not the usual Monday? Well the reason is twofold.

The main reason is I was busy on Sunday when I usually write these organising some stuff, and then very busy again at work on Monday with no time to set aside a couple of hours. The reason I was busy? I’m going on holiday, and by the time you’re reading this I’ll be barrelling down whatever highway it is south from Sydney to Jindabyne for a weekend at the snow.

So I’ve marketed this Wednesday post as a way to keep the gap not too long because I’ll obviously not be releasing an edition this coming Monday because, well, I doubt I’ll watch more than 5 mins of footy as I ski, drink too much alcohol, and go see Winston Surfshirt and Dune Rats perform this weekend, but that’s enough about my life.

Enjoy the footy this weekend and I’ll see you in a fortnight-ish.