NSW and Queensland will reduce their 20-strong squads name for the opening Women’s State of Origin in Newcastle on April 30 to 17 players ahead of kick-off.<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s State of Origin and the upcoming NRLW season will be played under virtually unchanged rules from 2025, with four players on the bench and no set re-starts.<\/p>\n
While most rules in the NRLW and Women\u2019s State of Origin are similar to the NRL, there are some key differences, including:<\/p>\n
Interchange: The NRLW and WSOO allows up to 10 interchanges per match, compared to eight in the NRL.
\n35-minute halves: The NRLW features 35-minute halves as opposed to 40-minute halves.
\nNo six-agains:\u00a0The six-again rule implemented in 2020 does not apply to the women\u2019s game, with penalties only.
\nModified 40\/20: The 40\/20 and 20\/40 rules have been modified for the NRLW with the 40\/30 and 20\/50 rules, a reduction of 10 metres.\u00a0<\/p>\n
NRL Executive GM, Elite Football and Pathways Graham Annesley said the rules for the 2026 NRLW season remain unchanged from 2025.<\/p>\n
“While it is important the rules of the men’s and women’s games are largely consistent, the few differences reflect the on-going growth of the NRLW competition and its development pathway,” Annesley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rules will be revisited on an annual basis as the game continues to evolve.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSW and Queensland will reduce their 20-strong squads name for the opening Women’s State of Origin in Newcastle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-623102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623102","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=623102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}