THE Castlereagh Cougars Women's Rugby League club is currently taking registrations from players for the coming season and are seeing a response that reflects the increasing popularity of the game across NSW.

The NSW Rugby League (NSWRL) recently announced that female participation had hit record numbers this season, with around 23,000 signing up to play the game, compared to 18,915 in 2019.

“Regardless of whether it’s a town of 200 or 200,000, we are seeing more and more women wanting to play Rugby League which can only benefit our game in the future. It’s also pleasing to see our players spread across heartland areas in both metropolitan Sydney and Regional NSW."

This year the Cougars have five teams to fill and President Sam Turnbull says that they have already had to close the books for the Opens and Under 16s because they had reached their capacity of 22 players allowed under the rules.

"We've had lots and lots of interest this year," Ms Turnbull said. "Registrations have been going really well but we still have places in the 18s,14s, and 12s."

As well as girls and women from the traditional Castlereagh towns of Coonamble, Gilgandra, Coonabarabran, Baradine, Coolah, Dunedoo and Warren, the Cougars have this year picked up players from the Barwon Darling area.

"We have one from Walgett, a few Bourke girls in the Opens and the younger age groups and a good solid group from Cobar this year," Ms Turnbull said. "We have players from pretty well all the towns."

With the first round due to start on 17 & 18 September, Ms Turnbull says her committee were about to release their training dates when the latest covid lockdown was announced.

"We're currently waiting to see what happens," she said. "The training days will mostly focus on the juniors to bring them together and teach them proper tackling and that sort of thing."

"A lot of the Opens players are still in the Leaguetag season," she said.

"We were hoping to have a day this weekend actually, but we're not there yet."

*Prizewinners at the Castlereagh Cougars' 2020 presentation day held in Gilgandra earlier this year with coach Channy Burgess (centre) and Cougars Club President Samantha Turnbull (2nd from right).

The NSWRL say that there has been 104% growth in the number of female players across the Group 14 zone since 2019 with the Cougars, who started in 2018 with just two grades, contributing at least 20%.

Ms Turnbull says that almost all other clubs in Group 14 have seen amazing growth and she expects the numbers will continue to increase as the season gets underway.

Cougars will line up against the Mid West Brumbies (formerly Mudgee Dragons), Panorama Platypi (Bathurst), Wiradjuri Goannas (Dubbo), the Orange Vipers and Woodbridge (the small central west towns reaching from Canowindra to Peak Hill).

"I'm pretty sure some of the Goannas grades are full because we've had expressions of interest from girls in Narromine and Nyngan who are within the Wiradjuri boundary," Ms Turnbull said.

"Once they're full the rules allow their players to try Castlereagh or Woodbridge."

The 2021 competition is to include eight games across a round and a half.

"If we get started it should be good," Ms Turnbull said. "Especially with the Cougars coming out as a stand-alone club."

"Up until this year we were tucked under the umbrella of the men's Castlereagh RL and we've definitely been able to make it more focused on female participation and growing the pathways for young girls coming up."

Preparing girls to take advantage of the broader opportunities in rugby league has become a key factor for the Cougars new leadership.

The NSWRL runs the state’s premier women’s competition, the Harvey Norman NSW Women’s Premiership, and provides another valuable pathway with the Harvey Norman Tarsha Gale Cup for Under 19s participants.

These competitions flow into NSWRL representative fixtures including the Harvey Norman City v Country match, the Harvey Norman NSW Under 19s Women’s Origin team, and the Harvey Norman NSW Sky Blues.

Ms Turnbull believes it is state and national WRL competitions, with televised games that underlies the surge in interest from females wanting to play the game.

"I think it's definitely the NRLW particularly, and the comps you can see on TV that's driving it" she said. "And we also had all that exposure form those girls who came out of our competition last year who played in the NSW team."

"We've got a real focus on pathways for our under 18s teams," she said.