For all the progress the Betfred Women’s Super League and England team have made in recent years, the Las Vegas showdown with Australia showed how much further ahead the world champions are.
Eight years on from their last meeting, which ended in a 38-0 win for Australia, the Jillaroos ran riot at Allegiant Stadium as five tries from superstar full-back Tamika Upton helped them on their way to a 90-4 victory.
It was a chastening result for England, who had won their four matches since the Rugby League World Cup semi-final defeat to New Zealand three years ago by a combined total of 248-0, but head coach Stuart Barrow was eager for more games against the best the Southern Hemisphere has to offer.
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“I hope they realise the only way we’re going to get better is to play more games like this and I understand the appetite from the Australians might not be to play us again after that result,” Barrow said.
“It might not be a big enough test for them, but the only way we’re going to get better is if we play better opposition.
“We think we’re rolling well and the players think we’re rolling well, but until we face the best in the world – which they certainly are – we don’t know where we’re at.”
England found themselves outplayed in nearly every facet of the game by an Australia team packed full of players who ply their trade as full-time professionals in the NRLW.
By contrast, the majority of England’s squad are still part-time or amateur players, with the BWSL’s big four of Leeds Rhinos, York Valkyrie, St Helens and Wigan Warriors the only clubs so far offering varying forms of payment to their players.
England try-scorer Georgia Roche and Hollie-May Dodd have both made the switch to the NRLW in the past two years and will be joined by Paige Travis in 2025, and while Barrow is in no doubt others are capable of joining them, he is keen to develop this country’s competition too.
“I think we’ve got plenty of players who could go over there [to the NRLW] and bring back their learnings,” Barrow, who admitted to being contacted by agents of Australia-based heritage players who could pull on an England shirt, said.
“The domestic competition in Australia is intense and it brings the best out of people.
“We’re struggling in our Women’s Super League at the minute that we have three, maybe four, teams in a bigger league so they have lots of weeks where they’re maybe not facing as big a challenge.
“We’ve got to look at our domestic league going forward seeing how we create environments like we’ve witnessed on the field.”
England’s defeat was reminiscent of the sort of result they have inflicted on France and Wales in their meetings in 2023 and 2024.
All three will be lining up at the World Cup in 2026 and Barrow was left in no uncertain terms about the level his team need to be at if they are to be able to compete with Australia and New Zealand then.
“It would have been easy for us to keep accepting the challenges of France and Wales in the Northern Hemisphere and keep doing what got done to us, but not really knowing where we were at,” Barrow said.
“We’ve learnt some lessons about what international rugby league is like at the highest level and we’ll take some learnings away from that, but we didn’t expect that result and that’s on me as a leader.
“I’ve got a 20-player squad who are really disappointed and we didn’t expect that, but we’ll have to review it and see where we go from here.”
