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\n Ball playing French forward Leila Bessahli in action against England.
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French star Leila Bessahli has hailed the NRLW as the world’s best female contact sporting competition and outlined her ambition to join a team ahead of the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A ball playing lock or prop, Bessahli is a key member of the Catalans team which includes Warriors duo Tyra Wetere and Felila Kia and Eels recruit Jayde Herdegen, and she wants to join them in the NRLW.<\/p>\n
Sydney-based NRL accredited agent Pierre Vand\u00f4me, who is assisting the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Fran\u00e7aise de Rugby \u00e0 XIII ahead of RLWC2026, is also trying to help find Bessahli a club in Australia. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a dream of mine to play in the NRLW. The NRLW is the top competition in rugby,\u201d Bessahli said. \u201cIf I get the chance to play in the NRLW it would also be very good preparation for the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Ball playing French forward Leila Bessahli in action against England.
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The NRLW boasts stars from across the globe and Bessahli said she and other French players regularly watch games.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody knows about the NRLW,\u201d she said. \u201cI watch it on TV or sometimes I watch it in the bar with other players in the team.<\/p>\n
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For a lot of women playing rugby it is the top rugby competition.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere are three players from the NRLW in the Catalans team and it is good to have those women play for the team because we get to see a different way to play rugby.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bessahli has been playing rugby league and rugby union since she was five-years-of-age, and is a dual international \u2013 having represented Algeria in rugby sevens qualifiers for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.<\/p>\n
She also had a stint with York in the Women’s Super League, helping the Valkyrie to win the 2022 League Leaders Shield.<\/p>\n
After making her international rugby league debut in 2017, Bessahli has been a regular member of the French team and played at the last World Cup in England in 2022.<\/p>\n
She is looking forward to RLWC2026, with France playing matches in each of the three host nations – Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n
Their campaign begins at Santos National Football Stadium against the PNG Orchids on October 17 followed by a clash with the Kiwi Ferns at Christchurch\u2019s One New Zealand Stadium on October 25 and Fiji Bulikula at Cbus Super Stadium on October 31.<\/p>\n
Walsh, who has lived in France since 1999, was appointed coach in January and took charge of his first training camp in Toulouse last weekend ahead of the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Match Highlights: France v Cook Islands<\/p>\n
\u201cFrance is getting stronger and we are working very hard,\u201d Bessahli said. \u201cWe have a new coach (Walsh) and this weekend is the first meeting of the French team with the new coach. It is going to be a hard weekend of training.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French star Leila Bessahli has hailed the NRLW as the world’s best female contact sporting competition and outlined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-545039","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\/545039","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=545039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}