The NSW women’s Origin team wants to travel down Caxton Street – and get pelted with XXXX

The match was played on a cold Saturday night at Leichhardt Oval before a handful of people.

“There was nobody there,” she recalls. “It wasn’t advertised, wasn’t well-known, there was limited media. The field didn’t open until right on kick-off because they didn’t want to pay people to open them earlier. That’s where our game was then. The stigma in women’s rugby league was still there.”

As Paul Kelly so beautifully told us, from little things big things grow. So it is with women’s rugby league.

On Thursday night, Apps and her Sky Blues teammates run onto Suncorp Stadium for the first of three State of Origin matches against Queensland. It’s the first time a three-match series is being contested and a crowd of more than 25,000 is expected.

“People are coming to watch us play,” Apps says. “Even I forget that people are buying tickets to watch us, not as a curtain-raiser for some other game.”

Ruan Sims, a pioneer of the women’s game who is on the NSW coaching staff, offers this: “The game has taken leaps forward in such a short period of time. Any investment that is made in the women’s game, is repaid seven-fold with the quality of the product. The more we put in, the better it will get.”

Women’s rugby league has been played since 1921, with the first official interstate match played in 1999, before the matches fell under the State of Origin banner in 2018.

The NRL became a little too cute last year when it decided to expand the series to two matches.

When the sides went into camp for game one, players were told the series winner would be determined by aggregate scores if each state won a match.

After the Maroons won the first match 18-10, the Sky Blues needed to win by nine or more in the second match in Townsville to claim the shield. They won 18-14 — but lost the series.

“Last year was pretty much a joke,” Apps says. “I don’t know what they were thinking. It was so bizarre. Both teams were deflated at the end. I’m actually glad it happened because it created such an uproar around three games. If either side had won two, it wouldn’t have been brought up.”

These are the incremental victories the women’s game must have in order to grow.

Stats provided by the NRL show there are more metres run, more line breaks made, more points scored with each annual series. Crowds and TV ratings continue to swell.

In true Origin style, the matches are close, with every game decided by 12 points or fewer.

In true Origin style, Queensland has a superstar that sends a chill up the spine of Blues players each time she touches the ball.

Fullback Tamika Upton is the reigning Dally M player of the year and was named player of the match following Newcastle’s victory over the Gold Coast in last year’s NRLW grand final.

Her footwork, combined with a long, loping stride that’s not too dissimilar to Broncos great Justin Hodges, makes her the player the Sky Blues must stop.

“You think you’ve got her, and then you don’t,” Apps says. “We have to make sure our line is nice and connected. If you give her a sniff of any gap, she’s that elusive with her footwork she’ll find it. We have to be really diligent in that area and give her no space.”

‘People are coming to watch us play. Even I forget that people are buying tickets.’

NSW player Kezie Apps

In true Origin style, there’s been plenty of debate around the NSW halfback.

Coach Kylie Hilder surprised many when she overlooked 19-year-old whiz kid Jesse Southwell, who is just as much a star for the Knights as Upton.

Southwell is also the incumbent NSW halfback, having played in the win over Queensland in game two last year.

Instead, Hilder has opted for Parramatta halfback Rachael Pearson to play alongside Roosters fullback Corban Baxter, who has been named at five-eighth.

“Just like all the other players, she [Southwell] is obviously disappointed, but it is a three-game series,” Hilder said last week. “She is young, so there’s plenty of time. We’re just really excited about the halves we’ve got ready to go. That’s what we’re focusing on.”

Like the men’s, the NSWRL board needs to ratify the team before it can be announced. Sources speaking on the condition of anonymity report that there was long, fervent debate about Southwell’s omission.

Her name might be missing from the match-day program but the handful of well-known players in both sides is further evidence of how much little things have grown.

For the Blues, Emma Tonegato, Jess Sergis, Isabelle Kelly, Tiana Penitani and Millie Elliott are names that resonate in the rugby league landscape. They have been impossible to ignore.

So, too, Queensland legend Ali Brigginshaw, who said this week she wanted women’s rugby league to gain the same traction as the Matildas.

“We’re not women playing rugby league,” she said in a piece written for The Guardian. “We are rugby league players set to contest a State of Origin series.

The “stigma” Apps talks about lingers. She’s being kind: the word she might be looking for is “misogyny”.

Sky Blues prop Caitlan Johnston has been brutally fat-shamed on social media this week with her teammates leaping to her defence.

Those responsible for the trolling have clearly never seen her play: tough and skilful on both sides of the ball, she’s a mesmerising player.

The real selling point of the women’s game is the distinct lack of wrestling in the ruck that so often stymies attack in the NRL.

“Because we’re part-time athletes,” Apps says, “We don’t have time to do much wrestling training.”

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