The Parkes Spacemen are calling on local women to make history by joining their first-ever open women’s tackle rugby league team for the 2026 season in the Peter McDonald Premiership (PMP) as women’s tackle football continues to gain momentum across the region. <\/p>\n
In 2025 teams from Dubbo, Mudgee, Orange, Wiradjuri Goannas and Castlereagh Cougars competed in the first PMP open women’s tackle season and now Parkes wants to be part of the action. <\/p>\n
Parkes Spacemen president Andrew Thomas said the club is excited to take this next step. <\/p>\n
“We’ve never had a women’s tackle team before but the PMP is pushing to grow the women’s game,” Thomas said. <\/p>\n
“Last year, four clubs played a shortened season and now the goal is to expand the competition. <\/p>\n
“We still have league tag, but adding tackle will give women another pathway.”<\/p>\n
So far interest is building with about 10 players keen to get involved. <\/p>\n
But the team needs 13 players to take the field and 15 to make it more viable.<\/p>\n
If you’re sitting on the fence, now’s the time to put your hand up. <\/p>\n
“We’ve got a coach lined-up, Troy Gosper, who brings experience coaching juniors and women’s tackle. He’s passionate about making this happen,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n
The Spacemen believe this is a great opportunity for local talent to step up and lead the way for younger players coming through the ranks.<\/p>\n
There’s already proof there’s a pool of talent in the Parkes Shire with some of its players members of the undefeated premiership-winning Lachlan Under 16s in the Western Women’s Rugby League competition, and of course our own NRLW star Elizabeth MacGregor who debuted with the Bulldogs in the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got plenty of juniors, but we need some older girls to show the way,” Thomas added.<\/p>\n
“If you’ve ever thought about giving it a go, this is your chance.”<\/p>\n
Interested? Reach out to the club via the Parkes Spacemen Rugby League Facebook or Instagram pages.<\/p>\n
A season launch is in the planning and the club is ready to support anyone keen to have a crack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Parkes Spacemen are calling on local women to make history by joining their first-ever open women’s tackle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-328178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}