LOOKING UP: Newcastle-based World Cup champions Caitlin Moran and Bec Young welcome the NRL Women’s Premiership. Picture: Josh Callinan

Caitlin Moran is already fielding offers from teams that don’t yet exist.

Bec Young has a seven-year-old daughter who may well follow in her parent’s footsteps.  

And kick-off in the inaugural NRL Women’s Premiership remains more than nine months away.

The buzz from claiming a World Cup title on home soil continues for these two Newcastle-based Jillaroos, also riding the high following this week’s announcement to introduce a professional female rugby league competition onto the Australian sporting landscape in 2018.

“It’s pretty much a fairytale,” Moran said.

“I still can’t believe it all [World Cup and NRL Women’s Premiership]. I’m only 21 and there’s so much opportunity now. It’s exciting to see what 2018 has in store.”

Upper Hunter-bred, Wallsend-based Moran was pivotal to the Australian women’s squad success at the international tournament, slotting in seamlessly at halfback throughout the five matches and sealing the 23-16 final victory over New Zealand in Brisbane on Saturday with a last-minute field goal.  

It makes the 2017 NSW Women’s Premiership player of the year highly sought after with 40 contracts on offer and NRL clubs, including the Newcastle Knights, currently getting together bids for the six available franchises.  

“After the announcement it’s all kind of happening,” Moran, who was in Windale on Thursday attending a junior gala, said.

“Everyone is obviously over the moon about it and I’ve already had a lot of offers from other places.

“I’d love to play for the Knights, especially being from here … but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Wests Group/Knights CEO Phil Gardner told the Newcastle Herald this week that the NRL Women’s Premiership was “a great concept and we want to be part of it”.  

NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg said “in a perfect world, we would consider geography within all of our tender documentation” and grouped Newcastle alongside other regions like Canberra and Melbourne.  

Young, an Adamstown 34-year-old with two children, now feels reinvigorated to go around again next season and buoyed by the possibility of wearing the red and blue jersey for real. 

“It’s so good to hear the Knights are being proactive and getting the ball rolling like that,” Young said.

“It would be an honour to run out with them.

“Playing an exhibition match this year [with the Knights] was unreal, but after the World Cup and the announcement this week, to have Newcastle in that competition as well would take things to another level.

“And how amazing to be able to turn to my seven-year-old girl and say if you want to play rugby league as a sport like her dad [Mick] did, then it’s going to be there as an option.”

Talks are also underway about a potential women’s tackle competition for the greater Hunter region following the recent November Nines, which included under-18 trials for the Knights’ first Tarsha Gale Cup side. 

NEW CHALLENGE: Jillaroos Caitlin Moran and Bec Young will be hoping to feature in the inaugural women’s NRL competition.

THE Newcastle Knights will bid for a team in the inaugural women’s NRL premiership that will be launched next season.

Up to six clubs will be granted franchises in the new elite women’s competition, which is expected to run from August until September and was described by NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg as the “first step” towards a 24-round, fully professional league to run in conjunction with the men’s.

Greenberg said the tendering process would be finalised by March and predicted there would be fierce competition for franchises.

Wests Group/Knights CEO Phil Gardner confirmed Newcastle hope to field a team that could potentially feature Jillaroos Caitlin Moran, Bec Young and Isabelle Kelly.

“We’ll put a tender in for a franchise and see where that ends up,” Gardner told the Newcastle Herald.

“Obviously not all clubs can have one, but we think it’s a great concept and we want to be part of it. Hopefully, over time, every NRL club will have a women’s side.”

Given that North Newcastle made the grand final of this year’s NSW women’s rugby league grand final, losing 26-16 to Redfern All Blacks, Gardner was hopeful of building a squad around home-grown players.

“Absolutely they will be considered, if they are at that standard,” Gardner said.

He was unsure how much it would cost to fund a women’s team.

“The same support mechanisms you need for a men’s side, you will need for the women as well,” he said.

“Training facilities, conditioners, coaches, doctors and all those things. So it won’t be a cheap exercise.

“And at this stage, nobody has seen the financial proposal from the NRL. Obviously there’s a fair bit of detail to be worked out.”

Moran and Kelly played in Australia’s 23-16 World Cup final triumph against New Zealand, while veteran Young was also in the Jillaroos squad.

Kelly scored two tries in the tournament decider and Moran, voted NSWRL player of the year, kicked a field goal at the death.

Rugby league is Australia’s last mainstream sport to announce an elite women’s competition, following the likes of the AFL Women, W-League (soccer), Women’s Big Bash League (cricket) Super Netball and Women’s National Basketball League.

Greenberg described Wednesday’s announcement as “a momentous day for the game” but admitted launching the new competition would be a challenge.

“We’ve got to be very careful and prudent about how we put these systems in place because rugby league is a tough sport and we want to make sure we have all the care around our players and the physical training that’s needed, the technique that’s needed. We’re starting with one step at a time.”

Matches will be played alongside NRL play-off games, and the final will be played as a curtain-raiser to the men’s grand final at ANZ Stadium on September 30.

The annual Queensland v NSW match, formerly known as the Women’s Interstate Challenge, will be rebranded as State of Origin and will be played on the stand-alone representative weekend ahead of Origin II in July.

There will also be a national combine designed to attract and poach the best talent from other sports including Australian Rules, soccer, cricket, netball and rugby union.

“I dreamt about this,” Jillaroos co-captain Ruan Sims said at Wednesday’s announcement.

“It’s something that we’ve been discussing as more of a tangible opportunity in the last 12 months.

“I honestly thought it would be 2020 by the time we got there.

“These kinds of opportunities, it excites me so much.

“I just want to start training, I want to start playing.”

START: Newcastle-based Jillaroos representatives Caitlin Moran and Bec Young at Alder Park. The World Cup kicks off Thursday. Picture: Josh Callinan

Caitlin Moran and Bec Young see each other almost every day.

The Australian women’s rugby league representatives work together, socialise together and during the last 12 months have trained intensively together, including fitness sessions at Alder Park.

Now the Newcastle duo finally get to live out a World Cup dream together on home soil.

“Bec and I have actually been training since last November, making each other run in 30 degree heat,” Moran said.

“It was hard but we had to get through it and our end goal was always pushing for a spot in that World Cup. 

“I work with Bec as well, so we’re pretty well together from when we wake up in the morning until we go to sleep at night.” 

Both have now been rewarded for their efforts, selected to play in the Jillaroos’ tournament opener against the Cook Islands in Cronulla on Thursday (4pm).

Wallsend 20-year-old rookie Moran was picked to wear the prestigious No.7 jersey after impressive performances across the backline this season, which featured the inaugural NSW Women’s Premiership player of the year award.  

Adamstown 34-year-old mother-of-two Young returns to the international scene at prop to defend the trophy she helped claim for the girls in green and gold in England in 2013, determined to keep a spot throughout the entire competition.      

They will be joined in the starting 17 by Central Coast-based North Newcastle and Blues teammate Isabelle Kelly in the centres. 

Pool games against England (November 19) and Canada (November 22) follow. Semi-finals are scheduled for November 26. The decider will be a double header with the men’s showdown in Brisbane on December 2.     

Young wants another date with destiny.

“We’re not afraid to say we want to win,” Young said.

“We’re there to win and we’ve been building our confidence, especially in the women’s game, in taking that next step and backing our ability to do really well.”

Moran said the squad, fresh from a week-long training camp on the Gold Coast, were well prepared.

”We’ve definitely ramped up our program with fitness this year,” Moran said.

“From the Auckland Nines to the [Anzac] Test, this is the hardest training I’ve done since I started playing and all the girls have stuck to it.”

Both were supportive of a landmark $3.75 million investment into the women’s game announced this month following the collective bargaining agreement reached by the NRL and Rugby League Players Association.   

It was hard but we had to get through it and our end goal was always pushing for a spot in that World Cup.”

Caitlin Moran

JILLAROOS: Nakia Davis-Welsh, Karina Brown, Annette Brander, Isabelle Kelly, Meg Ward, Ali Brigginshaw, Caitlin Moran, Steph Hancock, Brittany Breayley, Rebecca Young, Vanessa Foliaki, Talesha Quinn, Zahara Temara, Maddie Studdon, Lavina O’Mealey, Simaima Taufa, Kezie Apps, Corban McGregor, Heather Ballinger.