NRL blocks Portia Woodman-Wickliffe contract because it’s with the Knights rather than the Roosters or Broncos

What a joke. Such short sighted thinking but then I’d expect nothing else from PVL

The players aren’t full time anyway so wtf does it matter?
Can’t help but think of she’d signed for a certain other club, it would’ve been given the ok
Of course if it was Brisbane or Roosters there would have been some backhand dealings and she would have been cleared to play and still do her ambassador role for sure

Still think our issue is forwards this year rather than backs so should just be aiming for some more forwards but she would have been a weapon out wide for sure
 
Yeah this just stinks. Even the argument of her maybe not being fully invested as she leaves for Union WC. It would have been amazing to have her for majority of rounds, would rather though that'd she'd be around for the finals and GF too. Hopefully there is an avenue after the WC.
 
Makes a little more sense if she was going to be missing time during the season but I still don’t really understand what the NRL think they’re losing by having her involved at all.
 
From a business point of view I completely understand where the NRL are coming from, they don’t need her or her popularity, more will come and go.

It’s horrible business practice to buy a player whilst that current player is an active spokesperson for your rival code, if she dropped that gig I’m sure the NRL will allow it.

It won’t even be seen as a big blow to rugby by getting her if at the same time she is talking the game up, so I don’t hate them for it, it makes perfect business sense.
 
The NRLW could absolutely use all of the popularity boost it can get (ridiculous to pretend couldn't use help in that regard) and she would be the most popular/followed player in the comp by a long way. “More will come and go” really doesn’t apply here because literally no one of her popularity has come nor gone. She's got 60k more followers than the competition itself let alone any individual players.

As I said above I can somewhat understand the logistics argument of the timing (though why does the NRL really care if the Knights have a backup winger in the team for a week or 2 instead?), but who cares if a legend of rugby who’s in theory bringing new eyes to the NRLW is also still involved in promoting rugby? No one who's following her doesn't already know what rugby is, but plenty would be non-NRLW followers who could be introduced through her.

It’s also not like she’d be promoting it on the field or in her Knights/NRLW media appearances obviously. Just seems like the NRL shooting themselves in the foot for some dumb precedent that no one will know or care about.
 
The NRLW could absolutely use all of the popularity boost it can get (ridiculous to pretend couldn't use help in that regard) and she would be the most popular/followed player in the comp by a long way. “More will come and go” really doesn’t apply here because literally no one of her popularity has come nor gone. She's got 60k more followers than the competition itself let alone any individual players.

As I said above I can somewhat understand the logistics argument of the timing (though why does the NRL really care if the Knights have a backup winger in the team for a week or 2 instead?), but who cares if a legend of rugby who’s in theory bringing new eyes to the NRLW is also still involved in promoting rugby? No one who's following her doesn't already know what rugby is, but plenty would be non-NRLW followers who could be introduced through her.

It’s also not like she’d be promoting it on the field or in her Knights/NRLW media appearances obviously. Just seems like the NRL shooting themselves in the foot for some dumb precedent that no one will know or care about.
Totally, I think I said earlier but it would have been great promotion for the NRLW amongst all her followers. The people she’s promoting the union World Cup to would have been wondering about this other sport she’s playing. That’s a worldwide audience.

Meanwhile all NRLW followers already know union exists, so who really cares about that.

NRLW had much more to gain than lose.
 
If they were full time athletes I’d understand. However, it’s still a part-time comp and the players aren’t in the financial position to be giving up other paid roles if they have them.

It was really only ever going to benefit the NRLW. People aren’t suddenly watching rugby because one player has an ambassador role for union.

Again, short-sighted nonsense from the glorified used car salesman
 
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