Next year's packed women's rugby league calendar has put women's State of Origin expansion ambitions on hold but the Queensland Rugby League is hopeful of multi-match campaign in 2023.
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After being postponed due to the COVID pandemic, the 2021 NRLW season will now be played in 2022 before the women's Origin in June.
The 2022 NRLW season is then slated to be played later in the year with the possibility of a women's World Cup as well.
That schedule means expanding the Origin series beyond one match will have to wait for 12 months at least.
The QRL announced on Thursday it would be giving its women's players in 2022 equal match payments to the men's team and chief executive Rohan Sawyer said that move wouldn't dissuade them from seeking an expanded women's Origin campaign.
"We're looking at '23 now and how we expand that potentially to two games and then ultimately to three games," Sawyer said.
"Our view is obviously as we move through an expanded series that we look to pay our players and our staff to make sure we renumerate them for the work that they do.
"That is something that we'd have a look at to make sure that whatever work they're doing for us, it's on a pay scale that fits."
Queensland women's coach Tahnee Norris said the pay decision opened a pathway to expanding the campaign beyond a one-match series.
"If we went to a three game series too early, we wouldn't have been able to get the players for those three games because it would have been too much pressure on them work-wise to actually commit to that sort of thing," Norris said.
"Now it's a real conversation to have.
"We really want to go to that three game series. We can afford to do that now.
"The girls can take the time off work because we can actually compensate them for that.
"That's definitely the conversation that needs to be had."
Australian Associated Press
