Ahead of Thursday night’s Women’s State of Origin opener in Newcastle, both New South Wales and Queensland have found themselves in a bind.
Aside from February’s All Star game, most players enter the match without having played a game in 2026.
With Origin acting as the unofficial beginning to the year for women’s rugby league, how does one prepare to hit the ground running in one of the biggest games of their life without a warm-up match to show for it?
The answer for the Blues was simple — they crashed into each other until John Strange’s ideal team belted itself into shape.
The Blues worked hard to match the intensity of last year’s series. (Getty Images: Cameron Spencer)
Through a six-week training block leading into Game I, the Sky Blues played two internal matches with the intensity turned up to 11 in an effort to repeat last year’s series victory.
“They were ridiculous. The girls were so fired up, absolutely bashing each other. You could feel everyone was playing for a jersey,” back rower Tiana Penitani Gray said.
“They wanted to replicate, if not add layers, to the intensity we played in Origin last year.
“We did that in our trial games and that six-week block is about preparing us to go further than we’ve ever done in the game at this level and be physically and mentally prepared, whatever that takes.”
When the players talk about the training block they use all the phrases you normally hear about pre-seasons, which essentially is what they went through.
In addition to the two trials, most weeks contained three field sessions and three to four weight sessions as well as other training players were expected to complete on their own.
Prop Kennedy Cherrington called it “one of the hardest thing I’ve ever done” but said it would be worth it to improve on last year’s 2–1 win, given the side felt they fell short by not capturing the whitewash.
“It’s off the back of how we finished last year, in Game III we dipped a little, we wanted to go 3–0 and that was the plan,” Cherrington said.
“I know the first two games were awesome and we’re proud we won, but we wanted the nail in the coffin.”
This is the second year in a row both teams will come into Origin I cold. Previously players were able to find their feet in NSW or Queensland Cup but with both those competitions moving later in the year to act as feeders for NRLW, the training camp is all they have.
It makes the first game of the series difficult to get a read on.
For someone like Millie Boyle, who makes her return to the game after a season out due to childbirth, the block has been a chance to fully prepare for her first match in more than 18 months.
Give the schedule issues around Origin fixtures in the past, she is circumspect about the challenges at hand.
“I feel like every year there’s going to be something. We played one game and that wasn’t enough, then we played two games and that was stupid, now we’re playing three games and we’re talking about not having games before it,” Boyle said.
“It’s not ideal that we haven’t played beforehand but Queensland are in the same boat.”
The Blues might have a slight edge given they could be a little more comfortable in that boat.
They have 14 of last year’s 17 from Game III returning, all of whom went through the same training block last year. That cohesion could make all the difference.
Queensland seem more of a team in the midst of a change. Following Ali Brigginshaw’s representative retirement and Tarryn Aiken’s knee injury, the Maroons will be without their two most capped Origin players ever.
The clever Lauren Brown retains her halfback jersey from last year’s dead rubber and will be joined in the halves by Cronulla’s impressive Chantay Kirria-Ratu on debut.
With Tamika Upton, the game’s best player, lining up at fullback anything is possible for the Maroons but with the Blues boasting the likes of Isabelle Kelly, Jesse Southwell and Olivia Kernick, they deserve their favouritism.
By the time Game II at Lang Park rolls around in two weeks, both sides will have a much better grasp of themselves and their opponents.
But until then they will have to hope what their players have done to each other through their six weeks in hell is enough.
