Less endearing, though, are the comments. She gets them at every game, shouted from the sidelines or from cars driving past the stadium.

"[Comments] range from 'you look good' to things I can't repeat," said 23-year-old Miss Gallimore, who has cheered with Wests Tigers and, now, with the St George Illawarra Flames.

"There's always some young, drunk guy yelling out ... things like wanting to take you home and what they would do to you. I wouldn't say it's flattering at all to be spoken to like that.

"I'm always really self-conscious about what people there with families are thinking.

"[Those making the comments] wouldn't objectify their own mother or daughter or sister. Don't treat us any different to how you treat them."

Miss Gallimore and fellow Flames member Stephanie Buncombe are part of a push to debunk the "cheerleader myth" on the eve of the NRL's Women in League round this weekend.

According to Miss Gallimore the myth - which casts cheerleaders as "girls that just dance [with] blonde hair, big boobs" - is outdated, if it were ever true.

She points to the occupations of Flames members and her own academic achievements - a double degree in Dance and PDHPE from the Australian College of Physical Education and, in progress, a bachelor of social science in criminology and criminal justice at the University of Western Sydney - as proof that the stereotype is undeserved.

"We're not just dancers, we can do other things. No-one fits the stereotype any more. No-one is the dumb, blonde cheerleader."

Miss Buncombe, a 20-year-old student of the University of Western Sydney, said members of the league community were often surprised when she told them she was studying psychology.

People from her university circle were equally surprised when she told them she was a cheerleader.

She hopes to do clinical or forensic psychology and pairs her academic commitments with a passion for cheering, and for the game itself.

Cheerleaders, she said, were "more than just eye candy".

"Cheerleaders bring more to the atmosphere," she said.

This weekend's Women in League round, which will see the Dragons take on Parramatta Eels at WIN Stadium tomorrow, is the NRL's bid to celebrate the contribution of women to the game, and raise funds for causes including the Joanne Mackay Breast Cancer Foundation.

According to the NRL, more than 140,000 women and girls have a direct connection with the game, including as administrators, players, coaches, employees, volunteers, club members and cheerleaders.