As much as I love the game of rugby league so much, I can't lie and say that this game
hasn't had an association with this gendered violence problem.
Marlee Silver is one of Australia's most up-and-coming rugby league journalists.
Her love for the game started practically from the day she was born, which was just
three days before her dad won a premiership with the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs.
As a Dunguddy and Gamilaroi woman, storytelling has been a part of Marlee's Indigenous
Australian culture for over 60,000 years.
As a proud supporter of the NRLW, it only felt natural that telling stories about women's
rugby league is what Marlee was destined to do.
But now she's dipped into long-form storytelling to tackle some of the biggest issues within
Welcome back to the Female Athlete Project.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Sophie, the producer here at TFAP, and this week Chloe caught up with Marlee following
the release of her new documentary, Skin in the Game.
Skin in the Game examines the role that rugby league has played in Australia's history of
domestic and family violence, and what the sport can do to be part of the solution.
We hope you enjoy this episode.
Marlee Silver, welcome to the Female Athlete Project.
Thank you, Chloe.
It's so nice to be here.
I'm really looking forward to chatting to you about your story and your life to date.
But an amazing doco that has just come out, Skin in the Game.
No, we're not going to start with it.
We're going to go back.
I like going general chronological order.
Can you tell me what was Marlee like as a little kid?
Marlee as a little kid, I've got all these great home videos that means I can like actually
hear her voice when I think about her.
Now, my mum was really good at sort of capturing everything.
And inside the four walls of her home, she was a performer.
She was always looking for a camera.
She was always saying, mum and dad, sit down.
I've got something to show you.
Whether it was dragging my poor sister through some dance routine or just, you know, I don't
We used to play doctors and vets with our toys and stuff.
And then we'd show mum and dad everything we would do.
Did you charge them 20 cents?
That's the one thing we didn't do.
I just like forced them through it.
I must have even realised then that it was pretty painful so I didn't charge them.
But yeah, as a kid, I was always really comfortable performing or being on stage.
Being on a stage with a microphone, mum chucked me into acting classes really young.
But the irony was that she did that because as soon as I would leave the house, I would
not leave her side.
I wouldn't talk to anyone.
I was extremely shy.
Which is so funny, right?
But I've found there's a few parents I've spoken to who have kids who are really similar.
Like they're very confident or they just love that sort of having attention on them within
And then outside of it, get quite anxious or just really didn't like being around strangers.
So mum was like, you can't be like that, you know, at school and whatever.
I want you to be confident to talk to people.
So she threw me into acting classes.
And even still, like, I didn't like having one-on-one conversations with people until
I was about 20, I reckon.
But I've always felt comfortable with a mic in hand or on stage.
So yeah, that's a little bit of an insight into the kind of kid I was.
And even now, like, obviously you're very comfortable in front of a microphone and
camera, but would you describe yourself as an introvert?
I think that, yeah, maybe in earlier iterations of my career, there would have been people
who weren't that surprised by that.
But these days it's definitely more of a surprise because I'm working media and that's my job
and I'm definitely way more comfortable talking to people I've never met before.
But it was a real journey.
Like, I think I just, yeah, I still am very much love to recharge on my own.
And I'm totally comfortable with my own company and that sort of stuff.
But I actually, there's quite a few people I work with now who are in the same industry
who have really similar stories.
So it's kind of like when you've probably heard stand-up comedians talk or people's
interactions with them and they're like, oh yeah, they're not very, you know, extroverted
I think it's common.
Because we know we're putting on some sort of act to do our job.
So you sort of feel a little bit detached from yourself.
And do you find, like, I find when I'm doing that media in front of camera type stuff,
the adrenaline it takes, like, I love it.
But then like the come down afterwards.
It's like, it's quite exhausting a lot of the time.
And then I'm also so wired.
Like after a footy game, you know, we get home probably like 10, 30, 11 and it's been
And I know I'm really tired, but I can't switch off.
And you're like, oh God, I don't want to think about that moment or whatever.
Where did you find a love for rugby league?
I was born into a love for rugby league.
My dad was a professional player.
And so my earliest memories are being at footy stadiums.
You know, I think the soundtrack to my childhood is kind of roars and chants and, you know,
whistles blowing.
Like that's very much what I think of.
So dad won a premiership with the Bulldogs.
That was three weeks after I was born.
Oh, that soon after.
So I say I was a good luck charm, obviously.
But it just means that footy and my family have always been really intertwined.
And it's also really interesting.
And I've been talking about this a lot, obviously, with the doco having come out, but I haven't
always been 100% in love with it.
I was born into it.
And then around adolescence, I think partly fatigued by being referred to.
I was Rocket's daughter for my whole life, which is my dad's nickname.
And also just, I don't know, I think kind of being a newborn feminist at that period of
time and feeling like women weren't a part of the sport of rugby league.
And I was a bit angry about that.
So I just thought, oh, it's not really for me.
So there would have been a period of about three or four years where I just didn't engage
And I didn't feel like it was a place for me.
And it was only once we started having.
Women as part of the coverage and then the kind of conversations about the NRLW coming
that I was like, oh, OK, maybe I maybe I'm into it again.
And then, of course, I've ended up working in it.
What did it look like for you as a young person, obviously being surrounded by it, knowing
your dad's involvement in the game?
Did you ever want to play or be involved?
I always wanted to play.
And I wasn't allowed to.
Which is, you know, ridiculous to think about now.
But I think a big part of the reason I wanted to play.
I mean, I there's a reason I talk about sport and I don't play it.
I don't have the sport like the sporting technique or prowess or I admire athletes a lot.
I just have never had the talent.
But I wanted to be a rugby league player.
I used to be like, I want to be like Jonathan Thurston.
I want to be like because Aboriginal success on screen at that period of time, with the
exception of Cathy Freeman in 2000, was all Aboriginal men who played sport.
I think that's why I wanted to be it so badly.
Like, I just wanted to be a footy player like my dad, because that's what kind of success
looked like to me in my immediate surroundings.
And then I saw myself partly in a JT or a GI because, you know, they were like my dad.
So I think that's more where it came from, you know, rather than actually wanting to play
the sport. I think I just wanted to be on screen or be around footy in some way, because
that's what I understood I could do.
Yeah. Did you find a love for storytelling early in your life or is it something that's come a bit
I think that's something that's always been there.
You know, I often think about the fact that in Aboriginal culture we've all we've been doing is
telling not all we've been doing, but what we've been doing for over 60,000 years is telling
stories. And that passing down of an oral history is very much ingrained in every part of our
culture. And I feel like that's a an attribute that was sort of passed down to me from my
ancestors. So, yeah, in those same sort of performances that I was doing for my family as a
young kid, I was mum often talks about the fact that she stopped reading us children's books by
the time I was about four or five because I was making up stories for me and my sister.
And I have diaries from that era of me writing about fairies and dragons or dreams that I'd had
or I mean, it's pretty difficult to decipher with the spelling mistakes.
But I get the vibe of what I was trying for.
And I was and at school, that's where I flourished was in English, in writing.
And I always just loved it.
And then I think I studied creative writing at university, partly because my mum and dad were
just happy I was going to uni because they never did.
And I had that freedom to kind of do what I want, even though they tell me now behind my back,
they're a bit like, oh, she's going to struggle to get a job.
But it gave me this freedom to explore, you know, telling other people's stories.
And then, yeah, that it's my favourite thing in the world to do is just to sit down and talk to
people and hear about them or, yeah, I guess, tell stories that can make people think differently.
You set yourself the goal of wanting to go to the Rugby World Cup in England.
Rugby League World Cup.
How did you go about making it?
How did you go about making that happen?
I think that was the last time we sat down and had a chat in front of a couple of cameras, right?
I'd just done a bit of work, like social media work with Women's Health magazine.
They had reached out.
I'd really just been in the beginning of coming into telling female athlete stories.
I'd always been telling women's stories, mostly Aboriginal women's stories.
And during COVID, like so many people, you sort of have that shift and you go, OK,
what else can I do?
For me, it was very much about a level of exhaustion that I was facing, I think,
emotionally and spiritually.
So, and the one thing that was still happening in COVID was sport, right?
Which is amazing.
And then I started to kind of shift away from that, done a little bit of writing,
had my first ever sports podcast with my friend and my sister.
And then Women's Health magazine had reached out to me.
Hey, here's a bunch of nominees for our awards.
They're available for interview.
And we did a couple of interviews, which is so much fun.
And then I knew the Rugby League World Cup was at the end of the year in the north of England.
And I just thought, got to be a way that I can go and do it.
And at first, like really transparently, I was like, maybe I can pitch to someone and
they can pay for me to go.
And I didn't want to be paid.
I just wanted someone to come on my flight.
That's important.
And then I had pitched to a whole different bunch of people.
And got nothing like, and I understand why I didn't, because at that time I was so fresh
in the space, I wasn't getting like heaps of engagement online and I sort of was a bit
of a nobody in that space.
And I thought, OK, well, I'm due a holiday.
My mum thankfully works for Qantas, so flights can be quite cheap anyway.
So why don't I just go to Positano for a week?
And then I'll, I've applied for the media accreditation with Rugby League World Cup.
Then I'll go to Manchester and I've reached out to all the media managers, not of the
Gillaroos and the New Zealand side, but of the smaller teams that had never played in
Rugby League World Cup before.
Surely, surely they have some time and space to kind of sit down with someone and do some
social media content.
And that's what I did, which honestly is probably one of the best things I've ever done in terms
of career progress.
And I think I only just shared that part of my story recently because I had admittedly
a brand asked me to think of a time where I overcame an obstacle in an innovative way.
And I'm like, oh, well, I mean, it wasn't really an obstacle.
I was like, I knew what I wanted to do.
And I knew that I cared about telling stories that had otherwise not been heard.
And I had, you know, my trusty old DSLR camera and some Rode mics and let's just do it.
And it was like really well received.
And, you know, again, not huge numbers or anything, but the girls I interviewed really
And there were like language barriers with the Brazilian girls that we had to overcome.
And, you know, the English players were, had been like pretty disheartened from getting,
I think, flogged in their opening round or whatever.
But they were really passionate about talking about where they want the women's Super League
They weren't getting paid at that time.
And the Canadian women were a whole bunch of mums.
Who'd come back and like straight into full contact, which is crazy.
So I look back at that and I'm like, that really helped me figure out my voice in the
space and also just cemented that I really wanted to do this.
Like I really wanted to be telling those stories.
So yeah, when I had my first kind of interview with Nine, then over those couple of links
and I think that really showed who I was better than any sort of resume.
And so now you're in a position where you get to.
Regularly commentate and be sidelined.
How did it go from that to getting this regular gig?
Yeah, I guess at that point in time as well, which is an important context, I was at ABC
I just started doing a radio show with Declan Byrne, who was a colleague of mine when I
was doing Midnight to Dawns on Triple J many years ago.
And he wanted to bring the youth voice to ABC Sport landscape.
So I just started doing sidelines through them and all of that sort of stuff.
And then, yeah, there was this.
I had a list of these content at the Rugby League World Cup.
And then, yeah, Channel Nine kind of came to the table and wanted to just have a chat
with me without making any promises.
And at that point, I kind of, yeah, I knew that Nine was going to be airing all the NRLW
games and I wanted to challenge myself.
And I text who would become my boss the day they announced that saying, hey, congratulations,
you're going to be airing all these games.
I'm happy to run the coffees this season.
I'm ready to kind of go.
And he rang me about 30 seconds later saying, well, you've ruined the surprise.
I just sent your offer over to be a sideline commentator to my management.
And I was like, oh, and I got off the phone crying and just like, oh, this is sick.
I get to, you know, be with Nine in the Widewater sports team and yet be on the sideline
consistently every week with the girls.
And then, you know, this is my third year with Nine.
This year now I'm doing a lot of men's games on Friday nights and Sundays when they're
So I'm spending a lot of time in Brisbane.
And I also have my podcast with the Nine Network, which is me sitting down with players in their
houses talking about their families or their cultural identity or who makes them who they
are away from the sport.
And I think like all of that encaptures what I want to be doing, which is, again, just
Telling stories that affect people differently.
And I also recognize that there's people who are my colleagues who are far more well read
and experienced and understand like the technical elements of rugby league who are there for
I feel like the people I work with really understand that I'm not, I'm not there to
I'm there to be like, you know, a few weeks ago I had my arms around a crying mum before
a Sunday booed in Melbourne, you know?
And I'm like, that's me.
This is my space.
I like to do the, yeah, the family stuff, I guess.
Which is that stuff that people viewing really love, right?
Like that, that's a huge part of it.
I think it's definitely a part that engages people who aren't huge rugby league nuffies
or any, any like person who just casually absorbs sport.
I think the stuff that we remember, I mean, the Olympics are the perfect example of this.
It's, it's those tear-jerking moments, it's the family moments, the things we can all
Because as I said, no sporting talent, but I can relate to feeling really proud of someone
I love achieving their dream and that's why I love that sort of element.
Or again, when I'm interviewing players and they're talking about how becoming a father
has completely changed how they look at sport or how they look at a win or a loss.
Even though I don't even have kids, I can still feel that emotional empathy.
And you just think of them differently.
Every time I interview someone, like, you know what's so funny, the last time I was
in the Northern beaches, I was interviewing the Travojevic brothers or three, the three
who play rugby league and they were just so beautiful and warm and-
They're lovely boys, aren't they?
They're really community minded, passionate about their family kind of men.
I have hated Manly my whole life.
Like that is the biggest stereotype of all time.
We've always hated Manly.
We've always hated Manly, like as a club, like not so anti-Manly.
I find myself going, go Manly because I love the boys because I just think they, and you
kind of go, that's, I mean, no, I don't expect anyone to kind of feel sympathetic to any
That's part of sport, but you just look at it differently when you think about this person
who's out on the field as a human being and you hear about them talking about, you know,
their beautiful late grandmother who used to love hearing the name Trvojevic on the screen
because it was the only time she heard like a Serbian name on television.
And you're like, oh, that's so cool.
Like that's, that's the craziest thing that I get to experience now.
And I hope that that's what people take away from those sorts of conversations.
I think from a TFAP lens, probably slightly different to like the team rivalry, but I
love the power of storytelling in connecting people to someone.
So that when they then see them compete, they feel that sense of connection.
Like you said, they might not be like hugely devoted to that sport or event or whatever
it is, but they feel that connection to that person is quite a powerful thing.
I think we see that more broadly in women's sport now.
I mean, we talk about the Matildas all the time, but that's the most significant kind
of cultural moment in women's sport in this country.
And the whole response to the Marty Shegold comments is because we feel like we know these
Ultimately, these women who have done everything they've done with the Matildas, and we see
real world impacts of our nieces or our young girls around us, and even the young boys around
I have friends whose younger brothers all fight to be Sam Kerr on FIFA now, you know?
That stuff, we felt so passionate and all immediately were like, uh-uh, this is not
sweet because of that emotional, really personal kind of connection we have.
And I think that's definitely...
Definitely like the best solution to people who don't engage with that usually or have
previously let those sorts of attitudes kind of just be passed by without a second thought.
That was such a...
It was a really big milestone, I think, that Marty Shegold response.
The way that that video was...
So Rosie Malone originally shared that audio clip and I reached out to her and I said,
can we collab with you?
And it literally...
Her post blew up.
And it was just really quite amazing to see like the power of social media, people like
coming to the comment sections, tagging the right people, calling it out, sharing it on
And then it's obviously, it just gained a huge amount of traction, what he said in a
But to see, I think the repercussions of it, to see actual action come off the back of
it, because I think we've probably seen this public groundswell calling things out like
I think we've seen it happen.
And we've seen it happen.
I think it's really powerful moving forward.
I think it's really powerful moving forward that people in those positions are going to
have to think about what they're saying.
It's at the bar of expectation too.
For people like myself, who are a part of the broadcast landscape, that line in the
sand of, yeah, that's not sweet, you're gone is really important to establish.
I think there's a lot of other areas where that needs to happen.
but I think in sports administration or in particular playing groups as well,
it's that line in the sand, this is not acceptable
and we don't want you as part of our brand.
It's a smart business decision as well because, like, who wants to engage?
I mean, I don't know if Marty Shegold's demographic was particularly skewed
towards people who care about women's sport anyway, but, you know,
Triple M goes, yeah, no, we understand that we have a position
in sports media and that's not what we want to be a part of.
And there's also, what are they called, MF Witches?
Have you seen that Instagram page?
So they went out and they got all of their followers to contact
the advertisers, which is part of their strategy, which is clever.
Because if you're calling out these broadcasters and action isn't happening,
calling out the advertisers and their source of their revenue,
that's a way to go, isn't it?
Yeah, definitely.
I know they're quite an interesting group.
I think they're approaching a really big fish at the moment.
That's what I've heard recently in the radio landscape.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We all know what that is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is interesting.
I mean, again, like, there's always that thing where it's like, oh, you know,
there's all this outrage and blah, blah, blah.
People are sort of opposed to that.
But it's like, actually, we just want things to be better.
And, of course, sometimes, like, the whole, yeah, arguing and kind
of how hectic it can get on social media as well is not something I want
to be around all the time.
But in clear-cut instances like that, it's like, yep, sweet.
We'll solve that.
Let's talk about your documentary.
Firstly, congratulations.
Where did the seed come from for Skin in the Game?
So the seed of the Skin in the Game idea comes from my dad's story.
I'd always wanted to tell his story in a bigger format.
And, yeah, it's bizarre that it's become documentary.
Like, again, if you'd ask that, you know, five-year-old dancing around the room,
Marley, if she would do something like that, I think she would be like,
But it was, again, during COVID, I was doing some freelance research
producing for a production company, which I didn't even know what that was.
But they got me to do it, which is great.
And we needed to make money any way we could.
But it's this amazing production company called Southern Pitchers.
They're female-founded and led.
And that's, you know, I've come to understand pretty rare in the industry.
And they, like the group of women who work there,
just were really passionate about learning about my story.
And I told them how my dad grew up in Western Sydney in a housing commission
in a household marred by domestic violence.
And the thing that saved him is rugby.
And what he's been through and overcome and the life he was able to provide
for me and my sister is something that I'm, you know, eternally grateful for
and that we as an immediate family talk about quite a bit because my mum
grew up in a really similar situation.
So the two of them together have been this sort of powerful team.
And I wanted to tell his story and show that kind of inspirational message.
And it was very much through their suggestion, like,
we think there's a documentary here because now you're working in rugby.
Like, yeah, this is like the continuing of the legacy.
And what does that mean more broadly?
And so now I've worked in live television for a couple of years.
You might think that there's crossover between live television and long form,
but they are not the same.
It is a very different, two very different umbrellas here.
Live television, it happens very quickly.
You can kind of do it and move on.
Long form, I've been working on Skin in the Game for three years.
And that also means...
That one, my life has changed quite a lot in the last three years.
My career has changed a lot.
I was, yeah, just barely doing sideline commentary for radio
at the point that we started doing it.
And, you know, now it's like properly my full-time job.
And the landscape in Australian society has changed in three years as well.
What's interesting, I was talking to a colleague of mine today
who said he's just started watching Skin in the Game.
And he said, I don't know, I don't know.
And he was really surprised because it's not what he thought it was about at all.
Because when I had originally spoken to him about it,
it was something very different.
It was Dad's story.
It was the continuation of the legacy and the power of rugby league
in terms of telling positive stories about Aboriginal culture
and, yeah, me kind of taking the baton from Dad and moving forward.
However, we start filming.
And I also wanted to always talk,
about the future of the game being the NRLW,
which is something I wholeheartedly believe.
But this time last year, we were in this peak of a crisis
in terms of media coverage.
This has not changed at all with how many women were dying
at the hands of their partners and the spike in gendered violence
in a really horrific way in this country.
And people were really horrified, rightly so,
and feeling a little bit hopeless, like what can we do about this?
So, because of that external context, that shapes this part of the story.
One thing that we cannot turn away from, we can't,
as much as I love the game of rugby league so much,
I can't lie and say that this game hasn't had an association
with this gendered violence problem.
You only need to Google it.
And there's so many headlines and so many instances of players being,
having allegations against them or ending up in the court
because of domestic violence.
So, looking at that, feeling really uncomfortable with it,
but wanting to find a positive way to look at the past
and reconfigure to be a bit of a leader in changing our attitudes
towards women and girls more broadly in the future
was sort of where we landed.
And, you know, there's a few things that I had sort of assumed
for a few years, but being able to speak to experts,
academics in the space who really reiterated the fact that the more
that we see female athletes treated equally, paid equally,
their domestic competition is growing and more women in positions
of leadership in sport, the better it is for changing attitudes
towards women and girls in Australia.
The science is there.
I'm like, that's what I thought, but thank you.
Glad we could confirm.
Really glad that we could confirm that.
So, that's essentially what's getting in the game.
So, starting with the fact that the sport has not been good enough
in the past, there's a lot of stereotypes that are associated with it.
And, you know, there's also really positive stories in the game,
like my dad's, where it was a solution to experiencing domestic violence
as a child, a way of getting out of there.
But also, importantly, the emergence of the women's game,
it being the fastest growing part of the game, the NRLW expanding,
that the more that we help that continue to grow and the more
that we encourage the male playing group to be open and vulnerable,
to not adhere to that ultra masculinity, to not feel like they have to be
this big, tough rugby league player who says just rub some dirt in it
when they're struggling, the better it is for all of us.
So, it was really like eye-opening to kind of go through that whole journey
and speak to form.
And we had a lot of conversations with our former players to current players
in the male playing group, in the female playing group,
and even some former administrators who kind of, you know,
for the most part, were like, yeah, this makes total sense that you want
to have this conversation through the lens of the sport and feel quite optimistic about it.
So, it was a big task.
There's been a few people who kind of go, oh, God, like that's a bit heavier and deeper than,
about it and the answer is of course i was scared because it's important i think if you're not
afraid you're probably not pushing hard enough um and the best thing i think is from the feedback
that i've gotten from some journalists that i've spoken to or just people who've watched it is
this is not burning down the house yeah it's i said well i can't burn down the house because
i'm inside the house but i want you know to fix some door hinges and open the windows and let more
people in because i know that we are a sporting nation and often the only way we respond to big
social conversations and understand it and like do something off the back of it is through like
talking about it through the lens of sport i love that concept of being inside the house i think
as an athlete my experience has been particularly with tfap this real struggle sometimes with
calling things out yeah and i think that there would be a lot of parallels that this is your
of work yeah um you have relationships that you have now built over a number of years
yeah was that a was that a real battle throughout the recording process yeah it's interesting when
you're in the kind of filming blocks that we did this in I was just all in and not thinking about
anything else I was like getting quite genuinely frustrated with why aren't you thinking about
this or why are you saying this is just business and all this sort of stuff and um even yes some
reluctance or whatever not that we experienced a lot of it to be completely honest with you like
most people were very open to having the conversation um you know even getting peter
at the end which is like a huge get which we did not think was gonna happen like it's portrayed in
it as like I find like I've just got this chat and dead set like 12 hours before we were there
yep okay we're locked in for this time so crazy and then he was really generous and I think the
most interesting conversation I had because I push him and he pushes back at me but he's ultimately
really receptive okay and he's like if this is what the people want that's what we're gonna get
so I think he's a very clever businessman in terms of listening to the people and wanting
to get stuff done so I was really I found myself feeling very hopeful coming out of that
um but it yeah so once you're in it's like dead set just like doing the interviews back to back
and getting things sort of done you're not thinking about the broader repercussions and
then it was sort of the film's done and now I start to go oh okay what are some people gonna
think or or is this gonna be perceived the right way because I remember when I was studying at
university I had a um very clever lecturer say to me when you have something published
she was talking about writing at that time you can't you have to let go completely of what
you expect people to think because you can't control how people absorb or respond to any
kind of story and I kept having that in my mind and I was like I know what the point of this is
I know what it ultimately says or what I want people to think it says but I can't control what
people think mm-hmm so that was a bit of a battle in the last couple of months before it came out
right I kind of was like I don't want people to think that I'm on rugby league because I'm not like
really had a problem with it I wouldn't work in it like I wouldn't have anything to do with it
it's because I know how good it is and I know that there is this huge shift in the male playing
group as well because of my personal relationships with a lot of the players and again the
conversations I get to have through my podcast that I'm like it's there it's there it's just
about us sort of putting the mirror up um and I would say that yeah the biggest obstacle is
probably from it like I would say most other sporting bodies most other institutions of power
in this country there's a certain type of person who has had the power for a very long time and
who still holds the power and diversifying who has that power particularly through the lens of
having more women in leadership is probably the most difficult um thing we need to keep working
towards I think more than anything so
yeah it's been it's been a journey like definitely moments of doubt but now it's out in the world I'm
like yeah no people get this for the most part yeah the really interesting battle I think in
this gender equity space and and push for equity is this idea from a lot of men and boys that
they're being threatened um their power's being taken away they're constantly told that they're
in the wrong and they're doing the wrong thing have you seen adolescence on netflix oh my god
thinking about it was that really interesting timing for the release of that with your doco
um just around like the the conversations that that is involved like my algorithm is
I mean it's probably because of the work that I do but my algorithm is flooded with these
conversations it is really interesting timing I think that I think like I said the mighty
she gold comments I also think that off the back of Las Vegas conversations immediately
turning to the dealer who's not being there in 2026 and again the sort of overwhelming
responses to those sorts of things really really reiterates to me that we are at a point in time
where we can have these conversations and we do realize there's a problem and we you know for the
most part most people want to do good that's something I firmly believe and the more that
they're seeing sort of how this is impacting the next generation the red pill stuff the incel stuff
all that kind of um rhetoric I don't know there's a sense of urgency there
and I think that that's yeah it's quite poignant and there's been a little bit of that throughout
the three-year journey of like we got greenlit like two days after I found out I was signing
with nine you know by nrtv right like we're just crazy yeah and then last year we're about to hit
our final filming block and then there's this spike of all these horrific stories of women
dying at the hands of their partner and we're like ah this is where we need to go
and then now it as it was coming out and then I just see this like online
swell of like we need to do better um for for whether it's just like everyday life experiences
of young men like the sort of conversations we see come out of adolescence or specifically from
a sporting lens a few of the things that have happened um you know both in rugby league and
and more broadly I would also say there was a case of a former NRL player um who was in court
um with domestic violence allegations and they were dropped because of um his partner being
afraid to show up to court
from my understanding from the readings and I think um I was deeply disappointed with the response
from again some of the powers that be that sort of said well this revealing the loophole in the
no-fault stand-down rule that that means that person is probably cleared to play um so I think
all of that it feels like yeah it's almost the perfect timing for a conversation like this to
be sparked by something like um
skin in the game or taken further I think that the conversation I would correct myself and say
the conversation has already very much been sparked um but I think it also situates the
audience of the doco to um completely understand why the documentary was taken in the direction it
was you've touched on the nrlw the power of it and I see like I think the way the competition
has expanded the the obviously the early early seasons were like almost a bit of a novelty right
before games or something like it was it was tiny but I think the rate of expansion in my opinion
has been quite a healthy thing for the game for the pathways and talent and things like that
if we take a look at women in rugby league more broadly what can be done better and and also
looking from the lens of what can be done better for diverse women in those spaces as well I would
say um on a real practical level we often talk about the pay disparity um when it comes to the
other women's domestic competition
um uh and there's a lot of like the chicken or the egg oh the girls have got to make more
money before they can be paid I want to silence basic economics that should not be allowed to
be commented anywhere yeah exactly and and that's really infuriating but when I've spoken to some of
the players I think a really important part that is often missed in that conversation is um you
know really what they would like is their strengthen conditioning coaches physios assistant coaches Yes
full holistic support system to be paid full-time yes I have a sister who was an NRLW physio for
one season and she couldn't continue to commit to it because what she was being offered money-wise
was not sustainable and she was far better off working in the clinic that she works in full-time
instead of traveling and spending all this time and effort on the girls who she loves so much but
it just was not sustainable for her and I'm like of course that makes so much sense as much as
everyone goes oh well they're part-time but they can maintain their fitness and they do lots of
training and they spend their whole 12 months of the year being primed and prepped as professional
rugby league players yes so how important it is to have a full-time physio and all of those other
support staff I just said on call for 12 months of the year I think is 100% the most important thing
in terms of a next step yeah in terms of money yeah because the money chat is the the huge thing
and I think after the skin
in the game journey and multiple conversations that I've had um with women who have been in
leadership um in in sport but there's very few and far between when it comes to rugby league
unfortunately that's the next frontier as well we need to have more women who are encouraged
to um go and take on leadership positions in the sport and then are supported as they do so
yeah um Peter Valandes and I asked him this in the documentary he did
with the Australian Rugby League Commission put forward a proposal that there would be gender
quotas in the license for rugby league clubs um with their boards so they would have to have at
least 30% women on their boards Peter goes well I'd actually like it to be 50% I said my guy
let's go then but the problem was that the clubs actually pushed back and they cited problems with
member elected board positions and etc but there's got to be a way to get around that because the more
that the women's game grows it's really easy to sort of rest on your laurels and go look the girls
game is great and 100% it is and it's gotten to a point where it is just like the way that men talk
about it to me it's just completely changed and it's so exciting and that's fully on the back of
the girls talent um you know more than anything they're really just drawing people in which is
what everyone tells us we need to do it's frustrating um but in order to maintain that
continue to build environments at each of the clubs even the ones without NRLW teams as yet
um where women are supported in that culture is really positive and there's a really smart
business brain that's going again the fastest growing part of the game is the women's every
club is going to have an NRLW team we need to build those pathways we need to ensure
that by the time our team does get there they can be fulfilled and we need to be able to
build those pathways we need to be able to build those pathways we need to be able to
athletes um and and that has to come from female leadership so I would say those are the two sort
of structural things um that need to come from the sport itself and then for the average person
it's about showing up for the girls yeah and you know I sort of made this point when the whole
conversation about the gillaroos being axed from Vegas came about um and I yeah caught some
interesting backlash for even saying this right so I think that's a really good point and I think
which is from yeah who you can imagine you would get this backlash from um around me not
understanding that you know it's it's like it's not good for the girls game if if there's no people
watching or if it's score lines like that and blah blah blah I'm like I don't care my point is
on this that it's one thing for us to be like what the hell like you can't cut the girls they just
got there and of course we're the last ones in the first ones out always I'm like whatever Vegas
one thing I don't know if I'm like super supportive of Vegas at all to be completely
honest with you it's very fair yeah but I would say if you feel outraged by that and if you feel
frustrated with maybe yeah some of the um issues that remain in the sport or in sport more broadly
it's about showing up for the girls when they are around come to games watch games listen to games
on radio make sure you're following all the girls um I think for me from my perspective
what I take responsibility for moving forward is continuing to create more space or fighting for
more space to tell the girls stories in mainstream media I think that's something that I probably
didn't do good enough last year or didn't have the space to do good enough um so that's certainly
what I want to continue doing um but it's it's about and for as long as there's that the girls
need to make money in order to be paid money we also need to keep showing up for them and
if people know that in doing that they're helping build this future that has that direct impact on
the next generation's attitudes towards gendered violence respect for women I think that motivates
you I know that motivates me like knowing that that social change element can really be a part of
um the out the byproduct of supporting women's sport yeah absolutely I ask everyone who comes
on the show what is your favorite
and we can go to a different question if you need a minute or two to think
well you know as a 18 year old I started like my work career in the non-profit sector
and was working in that space and by age 20 was the co-ceo of a charity which was like an
apprenticeship program for 12 months but I was like I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't
know but they called me co-ceo which is a whole other kettle of fish um and I was really like I'm
gonna be the ceo of a charity one day and I'm gonna like try and change the world that way and
do all that sort of stuff and completely burnt myself out and failed at that hard um and that's
the best possible thing that could have happened because I think that I would have been I think I'm
able to influence change far more effectively while I'm not running around talking to
politicians asking for money god yeah I'm able to tell the stories that I want to tell and help
direct people of where they can go and to do the right thing and I would not have gone down this
path if I hadn't failed miserably when it comes to the non-not-for-profits um area of work that
I was doing yeah right um I really loved the opportunity on the podcast to branch out and
speak to people who aren't athletes and we've it's been received really well
do you have any thoughts on that?
Do you have advice for a young person listening or a grown adult listening who might want to follow
in your footsteps?
Yeah I would say the story of me going to the rugby league world cup is probably the the best
kind of case study I can say for I mean yeah there's been a lot of moments like that in my
career where I've either just said yes to something or just gone and done it myself
um that have helped me get to where I am I've always found it difficult because yeah occasionally
I do get a young girl who's maybe just gone gone
into journalism study at university or something or oh I want to do what you do how did you do it
and I'm like none of it was conventional but because of the power of social media because if
you know you can make a pretty decent podcast with pretty cheap equipment yeah you can use
your iPhone to to shoot some stuff and I think that don't be afraid to fail um don't be afraid
to put out a whole bunch of content or to get things wrong um
because yeah it's it's a real journey and it the more that you're putting out there the more you
learn about what works for you and and the more you can refine your voice and then um yeah I think
don't ever I and this is might be controversial a lot of people go oh like who's the person you
want to be like or you know who's your inspiration or who's your hero or if you did it like I'm more
of the Matthew McConaughey kind of lens right?
Except I it's not about disrespecting the people who've come before me there's some that I just I
admire so much or there's elements of what they've done that I really keep in my mind or I'm trying
to chase but I'm not trying to be anyone else I've never looked at someone in the media landscape
and going I want to be like her I've never done that and that's not because I'm arrogant it's
because I know I will never be that person so it's about being your best self and and I think
especially in media you have to have a unique voice yeah because you might get a few journalism
opportunities or presenting opportunities but you get to hold on to those opportunities and get more
of them if no one else can do what you do yes if you're completely different and each of us is very
unique so don't kind of try and become this uniform uniform cookie cutter thing in order to get it
be yourself 100% I love that I love it thank you so much for your time today I've loved hearing
story and I think I think it's such a powerful connection the role that sport can play in
shifting attitudes it's a huge part of what we do and I love the way you've been able to
use storytelling through this documentary and the work that you do day in day out
with rugby league it's amazing so thank you so much thank you so much boy I've been a long
admirer of what you do so it's very very nice to be on the female athlete project I feel like I'm
fangirling a little bit because you guys have such incredible influence and you know everything that
I'm speaking about today I just I just love it I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it
I know in terms of probably a lot of TFAB's audience but especially yourself I'm preaching
to the choir here this is what we're trying to do isn't it we're just trying to make good things
happen yeah absolutely thank you so much and I'll make sure producer Soph puts the link to watch it
on SBS on demand is that right yes it is you can watch it at your own convenience yes I love it how
good thanks so much for listening if you got something out of this episode I would absolutely
love it if you could send it on to one person who you think might enjoy it otherwise subscribe give
us a review and we'll see you in the next one bye
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