NRLW to take cautious approach with same format in 2019

The four-week NRLW season for 2018 looks like retaining the same format in 2019.

After rugby league's eyes were opened to the high standard of games and skills in both last year's World Cup and the inaugural Holden Women's Premiership, commentators at Sunday's grand final between the Broncos and Roosters were calling for a longer season.

There have been suggestions of having the four clubs play each other twice instead of once, for a seven-week season, and have teams getting familiar with their own structures more quickly.

But with a pre-season thrown in, plus the call to expand the women's State of Origin from one to three games similar to the men's, a longer season could create problems of the two competitions backing into each other.

"I'd say we nailed it this year in terms of how long it was," said Jillaroos coach Brad Donald, when asked his views on making the season longer.

"It's a big transition for these players. A lot of people don't understand we've got mums, and full-time workers who are transitioning in semi-professional athletes.

"It's not in the professional environment, yet we're expecting an awful lot from them.

"I'd be very cautious about doing too much more next year."

ARL Commission chairman Peter Beattie said he knew there were clubs champing at the bit – like the Sharks and Rabbitohs – to join the NRLW's current four-team competition of the Dragons, Broncos, Warriors and Roosters.

Beattie told NRL.com on Monday, 24 hours after the Broncos won the inaugural NRLW premiership, that expansion was still on the table for 2019 but it was more likely to be 2020.

"Not necessarily next year because we do want to go steady, steady," Beattie said.

"When the international season is over we'll sit down and have a talk and see where everything lies.

"We'll obviously listen to the coach (Donald). But the women's game is going to expand, let's not talk nonsense about this.

"But we've got to make sure we develop the skills base. It's about player safety, tackling properly, building physical fitness," Beattie added.

"So we balance player safety with developing the game.

"I was with Holden at the grand final, as one of our major sponsors, and they are really keen to see the game expand.

"It's definitely on the agenda but we've got to sit back, take a look and manager our players well."

As well as increasing the number of teams, there are calls to push the matches out to 80 minutes from the current 60-minute games, and align more of the rules with the men's game. At present the men have 40/20 kicks to retain possession while the women's have 40/30s.

"That again will be on the advice we get about player safety from the people who know," Beattie said.

"It's natural to think the men's game rules come straight over but again it's about being cautious so we build this product the right way – not rushing things."