Ruthless attitudes prove legitimacy of inaugural NRLW season

It was the penalty try awarded against Sydney Roosters winger Taleena Simon for kicking the arm of Brisbane five-eighth Kimiora Nati as she attempted to ground the ball.

It was the sight of NSW Origin captain Maddie Studdon watching from the ANZ Stadium grandstand after losing her spot in the Roosters squad.

It was Broncos centre Meg Ward ignoring the pain of a broken hand to take her place in the historic Holden Women's Premiership decider and her Roosters opposite Isabelle Kelly refusing to come off after suffering medial ligament damage during the match.

It was Roosters captain Simaima Taufa accusing Brisbane players of targeting the right knee she had heavily strapped when the two teams met a fortnight earlier.

From the moment clubs began comparing the bidding process for the game's elite female players to the Super League war, the inaugural women's competition was assured of legitimacy.

The four founding clubs were determined to win the first NRLW premiership and the attitude of the players during each of the three rounds and the grand final justified their decision to invest up to $350,000 each in establishing what is now the pinnacle for the women's game.

The 92 Broncos, Roosters, Dragons and Warriors players trained and played as hard as their male counterparts and won many new fans for the game, as evidenced by the 16,124 supporters who were in the stadium to witness Brisbane's 34-12 grand final triumph.

Many more were watching on television and the ratings for each game in the competition have left no doubt the premiership will only get bigger and better in coming years.

The Broncos' defeat of the Roosters ensured they were unbeaten in their inaugural season but as the women's competition expands the talent will be more evenly spread.

While Brisbane boasted a star-studded line-up headed by their captain, Jillaroos playmaker Ali Brigginshaw, 2017 Golden Boot winner Teuila Fotu-Moala and 2018 Dally M Medal winner Brittany Breayley, they also unearthed some new talent.

Among them were Amber Pilley, whose day job is playing the role of Catwoman at Movie World, and winger Julia Robinson, a truck driver for the Australian Defence Force.

The military training Robinson, Ward and St George Illawarra second-rower Talesha Quinn have received with the ADF helped the trio to play through the pain of injury.

The Roosters had their share of inspiring stories too, with Taufa ignoring medial ligament damage to lead her team in the competition, Ruan Sims overcoming a broken wrist that forced her out of the opening match and Zahara Temara winning the No.7 jersey after Studdon had initially been preferred at halfback.

Kandy Kennedy, whose father William "Bubba" Kennedy played for Balmain and whose brother William lost his own grand final with Newtown last Sunday, wore red, white and blue boots painted in traditional Aboriginal dot-style as a tribute to her grand father Alf, who passed away last week.  

Roosters five-eighth Lavina O'Mealey scored a try in her farewell match, while 2017 World Cup-winning Jillaroos captain Steph Hancock bowed out of the game with an NRLW premiership ring.

Nati, one of six Kiwis Ferns internationals in the Broncos team, scored three tries to win the inaugural Karyn Murphy Medal as player of the match.

Her second was a penalty try, the first awarded in the NRL Women's Premiership, after Simon – a four-try hero in the Roosters' defeat of the Dragons last weekend and a cousin of Jamal Idris – desperately reached out with her foot to stop the Brisbane five-eighth from scoring in the 17th minute.

Simon had earlier been involved in another historic moment of sorts for the competition – the first "Falcon" try - to help level the scores at 6-6 in the 10th minute when the ball bounced up and hit her in the head for second-rower Tazmin Gray to score.

History has now been made with the first NRLW competition played and won, and the standard set for the future of the women's premiership.