Distance means nothing when it comes to living out your rugby league dreams, with a special group of girls from Far North Queensland showing how far you can go with hard work and belief.
After playing a trial against the Sydney Roosters Indigenous Academy side in 2023, seven members of the NQ Sistas team – made up of a majority of Indigenous players from areas as diverse as Torres Strait Islands, Doomadgee, Napranum, Weipa, Woorabinda and Palm Island, as well at Katherine in the NT – featured for the North Sydney Bears Tarsha Gale side this year.
The original tour – organised by team manger Lauren Morrison and her husband Cameron – was such a success, a fresh squad of girls travelled down for another trial this year, with players selected to run out next season with the under-age Dragons side.
“All year, we did a fundraiser and brought them down for a trip at the end of the year and we played against the Sydney Roosters Indigenous Academy and from that Luke Phillips – he previously played for the Roosters – he was coach at North Sydney Bears and he contacted me and said, ‘There's seven girls there, can you bring them down and do a train and trial period with the Bears for Tarsha Gale?’” Morrison said.
“So I moved down, I fundraised and got an Airbnb and moved down with the girls and Luke asked them all to stay on to play the Tarsha Gale season.
“We were playing for North Sydney Bears, and then we went across and played club footy at (Pennett Hills) Cherrybrook Stags and two of the girls got contracted to Harvey Norman Roosters out of that.
“Then I did a post on our Facebook page about February this year to see if anyone would be interested in coming down and do another trial ... (and) I actually got 80 girls apply, which is crazy.
“But we got it down to 40 girls that came down here and from that, 17 got offered spots with St George, which is amazing.
“They have an orientation with St George and we've got 17 girls moving in with us in a nine-bedroom house we're renting, bodies everywhere, so that's kind of the back story of it all.
“We're just trying to give the girls an opportunity.”
As well as providing a chance to showcase their playing skills on the field – the tours also open the eyes of the girls about life off the field as well, with Morrison, who herself hails from Townsville, saying opportunities for work and study are limited in many of the home communities of many of the players.
While playing football, the girls are also completing school and TAFE, providing access to education and skills that will also benefit them post playing.
“They play when they're in boarding school, but they finish Grade 12, and they go home, and they might have started a traineeship or got their learners, but then they go to back to community, and (often) don't get that transition back into working life and continuing football and looking at opportunities after school," Morrison said.
“That's on and off the football field as well. (This program) is not just about playing football. They've got to be studying, they've got to be working.
“We've got one girl that's living with us at the moment, Lalita, she's from Moa Island in the Torres Strait, and she's now working, she started a commercial cookery apprenticeship in the city here in Sydney because they do a lot of Indigenous food, so they want Indigenous staff, and her long-term goal is then to go back to Moa Island and open a bakery.
“So they all do want to give back to the community, and that's what we keep reminding them that (home is always) going to be there.”
