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\n French captain Elisa Akpa (right) leads her team out against England.
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French captain Elisa Akpa has urged NRLW stars to consider an off-season stint in France as she waits to learn the outcome of a recent trial in North Queensland.<\/p>\n
Akpa, who trialled with the Cowboys before returning home for Christmas after two years in Australia, welcomed the move by Warriors pair Tyra Wetere and Felila Kia and Eels recruit Jayde Herdegen to Catalans.<\/p>\n
Other Australian and New Zealand players have expressed an interest in playing in the Northern Hemisphere during the NRLW off-season and Akpa encouraged them to take up the opportunity to play in France.<\/p>\n
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Tyra Wetere making the right edge her own<\/p>\n
The 2025-26 Elite 1 Feminine competition is played from November 15 until March 31 and while they wouldn\u2019t be paid as much as in the NRLW players could stay fit and enjoy the experience of living and playing in France.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the NRLW stars would lift the standard of the French competition and be role models for younger players in France.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so happy to see that the three girls from the NRLW were playing in France and I\u2019m sure that it is a great experience for them,\u201d Akpa said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are never sure if players want to come here to France, but we would be very happy to have some more Australians play in France.<\/p>\n
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I say, \u2018come to France\u2019. The French girls are very keen to have them.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe have got a lot of young players, and we want to keep them in rugby league and try to attract new girls to work with them, so for them to be able to learn from players in the NRLW would be amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Akpa has spent the past two years in Australia, playing for Wests Tigers in the 2024 Harvey Norman NSW Women\u2019s Premiership before moving to Canberra, where she played in the 2025 Katrina Fanning Shield competition.<\/p>\n
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\n French captain Elisa Akpa (right) leads her team out against England.
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Before returning to France, the prop was invited to a trial in Townsville on December 13 with the Cowboys.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey messaged me and I said, \u2018if I am good, I will come back\u2019. I said I would go back to France and we can talk after,\u201d Akpa said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely, I would come back out because I am so passionate and I want to show the French girls in France what is possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be good to have more French players playing in Australia. We used to have Perrine Monsarrat, who came on a development contract with the Roosters, and Laur\u00e9ane Biville before that, but I was here alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
After helping York to the 2023 Women\u2019s Super League premiership, Akpa moved to Sydney and trialled with the Roosters and Wests Tigers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have an agent, I try to do everything by myself, so it was very challenging but very interesting as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to join Wests Tigers and it was so different to what I was used to, but it was a very good experience.<\/p>\n
“After that season I went to Canberra for the Katrina Fanning Shield. I met some people in Canberra, and they said, \u2018stay for the season with us\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
If an opportunity in North Queensland fails to eventuate, Akpa is set to return to Australia in October with the French team for IRL Rugby League World Cup 2026.<\/p>\n
France qualified as one of three European teams and are aiming to improve on their performance at the last World Cup in 2022, during which they lost 26-18 to Cook Islands after heavy defeats against the Jillaroos and Kiwi Ferns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a really good group now, so I really want to move forward and train hard for the World Cup,\u201d she said. “When you are a player, it is so exciting to play in a World Cup, so you train hard every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe play Papua New Guinea in Papua New Guinea, Fiji on the Gold Coast and New Zealand in Christchurch, so it is still a big challenge for us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to do something in this World Cup, we want to be better and, of course, when you play in a World Cup you want to do your best.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French captain Elisa Akpa has urged NRLW stars to consider an off-season stint in France as she waits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-409454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409454","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=409454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}