{"id":818943,"date":"2026-07-23T15:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818943\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:21:11","slug":"nrlw-2026-sydney-roosters-star-fire-back-at-two-horse-race-claims-speak-on-proposal-for-tiered-roster-nrlw-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818943\/","title":{"rendered":"NRLW 2026: Sydney Roosters star fire back at two-horse race claims, speak on proposal for tiered roster, nrlw news"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week after Tiana Penitani called upon the NRLW competition to implement a tiered roster system<\/a>, two Sydney Roosters and NSW Blues stars have pushed back against the idea.<\/p>\n

The pair rejected suggestions that the Roosters and Brisbane Broncos are in a league of their own, labelling the growing \u201ctwo-horse\u201d discussion race as \u201cbull****\u201d.<\/p>\n

Watch every game of every round of the NRL Premiership LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, the Broncos and Roosters have established themselves as the NRLW\u2019s benchmark clubs, with their star-studded rosters consistently putting them ahead of the rest of the competition.<\/p>\n

This prompted Penitani to call for a tiered-roster system to help spread the elite talent more evenly across the competition and create a more balanced playing field<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I put my fan hat on, I absolutely think something needs to be changed as we move towards hopefully making the women\u2019s players full-time,\u201d Penitani said on Fox League\u2019s NRLW on Fox.<\/p>\n

The comments sparked a response from Roosters dummy-half Keeley Davis who pushed back on the suggestion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s honestly bull*** the two-horse race thing,\u201d Roosters dummy-half Keeley Davis said on Say Less with Millie, Keeley & Kernick<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly look at the competition now and there are big blowouts and it\u2019s not just from us and the Broncos. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t had a blowout game at all<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve had marquee system which is a bit different to the tiered system. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that changes completely how our competition is ran and how we develop our pathways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it really a two horse race in NRLW? | 07:58<\/p>\n

The Roosters star also argued that clubs should be rewarded for investing in their pathways system rather than being penalised for producing elite talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think team\u2019s doing really well are rewarded for how they are investing in their pathways and our young girls coming through,\u201d Davis added<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do it a bit different to other clubs where we are pretty involved with our pathways. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that investment has been really good for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of girls that have come through (Under 19s) Tarsha Gale that are our dev (players) at the moment or in the Top 30.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at someone like Aaliyah Nasio who is a Roosters junior who has come through the pathways.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are not to be rewarded or if we are penalised for her being an international player in years to come but we\u2019ve developed her then it\u2019s really unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Reason players want to be a Rooster’ | 03:02<\/p>\n

Roosters and NSW Blues star Olivia Kernick echoed her teammate\u2019s concern, arguing that a tiered system could discourage clubs from investing in their pathways.<\/p>\n

If it was to be set up like that, then we won\u2019t be rewarded to genuinely try and develop our younger players,\u201d Kernick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means our investment into the junior pathways wouldn\u2019t be there because they wouldn\u2019t care if they (are going to) lose their junior players anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A week after Tiana Penitani called upon the NRLW competition to implement a tiered roster system, two Sydney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-818943","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\/818943","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=818943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}