England captain Jodie Cunningham admitted that her side’s heavy 90-4 defeat to Australia in Las Vegas is weighing heavy as she does not want to do a “disservice to future generations” of women’s rugby league players.
England’s women were outclassed and outpowered as they conceded 17 tries in Las Vegas.
Full-back Tamika Upton scored five tries in the first meeting between the sides since 2017, with Julie Robinson and Jess Sergis grabbing hat-tricks as the Jillaroos dominated.
While for many the scoreline came as a shock, for those involved in women’s rugby league, it was a further indication of how much more developed the full-time environment is in the WNRL compared to England.
Speaking on The Bench podcast, England Women captain Jodie Cunningham believes they did a ‘disservice’ to the future generations of players after their record defeat to Australia in Las Vegas.
However, the England team have since received abuse on social media, with reigning Woman of Steel Georgie Duggar putting out a statement calling out the abuse and the misguided view that the loss was down to any lack of effort.
For Cunningham, she admits that it feels like a “damaging” loss with the pressure of the “future of every little girl on our shoulders” when trying to develop the women’s game, with it only a symbol of how much more investment is required for England to catch up.
“We’re really privileged that we get to pave the way for young girls and the next generation. I take that really seriously, but after every single big game we ever play, that’s one of the first questions I will always get asked is if we’ve gotten beat,” Cunningham told The Bench podcast.
“Let’s face it, as athletes, you’re selfish. You want to win. You want to be the best you can be. You care about that result. You care about a trophy. You care about making history. You get asked after a game if you’ve gotten beat.
“At that moment in time, you think, I just wanted to win this game. I wanted to lift a trophy. I wanted to win.
“I think we always have to carry the weight of the women’s game, of the future of every little girl on our shoulders.
“What has hurt me more than anything, as someone who’s at the back end of a career, who likes to think I do a lot for the women’s game, is I feel like we’ve done a disservice to the future generations.
“Arguably, all those comments, the ones that hurt me the most are the ones that say, the women’s game is useless. Why are we putting any money? Why are we wasting money on this? Look at them. They’re an embarrassment.
“That opportunity was one that I would have never turned down. Right now, I’m hurting. Right now, it’s raw. I feel like it’s hard to say that we’ve not done some damage.
“If that is the case, if my involvement and our cause damage to the women’s game and the future of it, then it’d be hard for me to selfishly say that it was a positive to go there.”
England endured a record-breaking defeat against world champions Australia in Las Vegas with the outstanding Tamika Upton scoring five of Australia’s 17 tries.
However, with a World Cup around the corner, England will now be entering that tournament with their eyes wide open to the level of competition they are going to face.
“Did we need to challenge ourselves to know where we’re at? Yes, we need to know where we’re at, because we can’t go another World Cup and not know,” she added.
“Because in 2013, we played against Australia. We were better than Australia in that World Cup. They beat us two tries to one. We had a player sent off in that game. We should have won that game.
Jon Wilkin believes England’s heavy 90-4 defeat to Australia in Las Vegas was a wake up call for the sport in this country and highlighted the gulf in class.
“From 2013 to 2017, we didn’t play them. 2017, we got beat 38-0. We went into that game not realising how good they were.
“I think we’ve now got to this stage and gone, wow, we knew they were good. Now we know really how good they are. I think we have to focus on how good they are.
“We are the fittest, fastest, strongest England team we’ve ever had. We just weren’t fitter, faster and stronger than them at that moment in time.
“We have to own that, but now we know that, we can hopefully come together as a group and find a way to close that gap however we can over the next two years.”
Sky Sports will again show every game of the Super League live this season – including two matches in each round exclusively live, with the remaining four matches each week shown on Sky Sports+
