Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Nestled in the heart of the Gold Coast, one school has become a powerhouse of women’s rugby league talent production – a juggernaut boasting more NRLW graduates than any other institution in the country.
Before the female game received its first national competition in 2018, Keebra Park had built a girls’ sporting excellence academy.
Just last year, on the back of the surging popularity of the code, they forged a separate rugby league excellence program, featuring three weekly on-field or gym training sessions, and a classroom session geared towards developing skills for budding athletes to handle the rigours of professional sport.
Among the mentors for the near 200-strong academy are former rugby sevens and NRLW star Niall Williams Guthrie, brother to cross-code athlete Sonny Bill Williams.
“It’s very much an aspirational sporting pathway, and we’re trying to make sure they’re prepared for that – making sure they’re resilient and have all their life skills outside of footy,” program head James Chapman says.
“We want to develop them for the rigours of professional sporting life, but I think the overall lessons of the program are we want to make sure they have a positive experience with rugby league, and want to be a steward of the game and play footy beyond just high school.”
Of the 355 players currently named on each NRLW squad’s roster, 19 hail from Keebra Park. Only two other schools – Marsden State High School (12) in Logan and The Hills Sports High School (12) in Seven Hills, Sydney – enter the double digits for NRLW graduates, with academy pathways still developing as the code continues to grow.
When asked what had made the program so successful, Chapman says: “It all comes back to the coaching staff. We have an awesome coaching team, collectively, who give up so much time and genuinely do care about the girls.
“Yes, winning is great, and it’d be great to bring back some trophies every year, but I think the level of care they have for the girls and the drive they have to see them improve every day is probably unmatched anywhere in Australia, I’d reckon.”
Several former students have become future leaders of the competition, including Raftstrand-Smith sisters Tiana and Ebony of the North Queensland Cowboys – the former representing the Maroons twice.
“Because rugby league was still so new at the time, the girls who separated themselves from the others really liked the contact element – that was Tiana. If you’ve seen any of her games, particularly early on, she loved the physical element,” Chapman says.
“A lot of the girls early on were transferring from touch football – highly transferable skills – but just developing confidence in contact has been an evolution in itself. We’re at the point now you could ask a 12-year-old girl ‘how long have you been playing footy?’ and she could say five or six years.
“The game has really changed in such a short space of time.”
There are 223 schools represented in the NRLW this season, including 172 with one representative.
Among those is Miami State High School, where rugby sevens star Teagan Levi was educated. On secondment from Rugby Australia, Levi has gone on to ignite the Titans’ premiership prospects.
Once the NRLW season ends, Levi will return to rugby and in preparation for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, alongside sister Maddison, who in Australia’s 100th rugby union Test made her Wallaroos debut in the 15-a-side code against the Black Ferns.
“I think that [Wallaroos] could have been an opportunity that opened up for me, but I wanted to come home to the Gold Coast Titans,” Teagan says. “[Being a dual-code international] is something we’ve both wanted for quite a while.”
Such has been the way she has taken to rugby league, champion NRL halfbacks Andrew Johns and Johnathan Thurston have been awed by her exploits – after she twice showcased a grubber kick ahead for herself to score.
“I’m loving the opportunity to learn a different game, each week is a new challenge in itself – learning the different opposition, knowing what’s best to stick away from, so I’m really enjoying the process,” Teagan says.
She had no desire to ease into rugby league. When she arrived at the Titans, she had her eyes on the Gold Coast’s five-eighth duties, and consulted former duel-code international Mat Rogers – of whose management agency she is a client – for insight.
“He just said to back yourself and do what you do best, that’s what got you selected to come over to the Titans. The game’s different, so I have to learn the different rules and structures, but [he said] to back your instincts and have a go.”
Teagan has scored seven tries, while coming up with five try assists and linebreak assists and averaging 104 running metres a game from eight appearances – which has included the club’s seven-straight wins to surge to second on the ladder, trailing only their round-one conquerors, the Roosters.
“I wanted to go in the halves. I thought my skills from sevens would help quite a lot, and I loved the challenge. I wanted to put myself in that position – if I didn’t think I was ready I wouldn’t have put myself forward,” she says.
“I did all the hard work before I even came across to league; I was doing Zoom calls, making sure I was catching up, coming home back to the Gold Coast whenever I could to make sure I was putting my best foot forward to make sure the team had trust in me.”
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