AMID fierce backyard battles with brothers Ashton, Tariq and Korbin, Jillaroos captain Ruan Sims always hoped she would one day reach the pinnacle of rugby league – though at that point there wasn’t anything on the horizon.
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Her younger brothers would all go on to become Internationals but Sims was forced to wait and spend time in various other sports before the opportunity to realise her long-held dream of captaining Australia in the sport that was her first love.
On Friday, however, 34-year-old Sims will captain Australia when they do battle with New Zealand in a women’s Test match that will receive equal billing with the Kangaroos-Kiwis Test and be broadcast on Channel 9.
It’s a far-cry from the nearly empty suburban grounds at which the Jillaroos played in the past and lomng-time Jillaroo Sims has witnessed a dramatic shift upward in professionalism and exposure in recent years.
“It’s been an extremely dramatic change, even since the 2013 World Cup,” Sims said.
“At the World Cup we came away with the win for the first time when New Zealand were going for four in a row but we didn’t play with the Coat of Arms on our chest .
“Now we play with the Coat of Arms, we’re double-header with the Kangaroos, we stay in nice hotels we have fulltime physio, fulltime training and coaching, we’ve got the support of the NRL...it’s leaps and bounds since 2013.
“We still only get one or two showings a year but the preparation and build up to it is far and above what we received in the past.
“That’s the legacy that the girls before us have left to put us in such a good position now.”
The ripple effect of the growing women’s game has seen the NRL establish under 14s and under 16s competitions in Sydney (girls can no longer play in mixed competition after the age of 12), Sims is happy the next generation will have a much clearer path to the top level.
“It was always in my mindset from a young age to represent Australia,” Sims said.
“[But] even rugby wasn’t around then either so I played basketball up until the age of 16 and then went into rugby union from there and had to wait longer to play rugby league.
“Now that we’ve got some real and genuine pathways from grass-roots rugby league all the way to the Jillaroos it makes it easier to retain really good athletes.”
As for Friday’s clash with the Kiwi Ferns, Sims is confident the Jillaroos can get some vengeance for a 2-1 series loss at this year’s Auckland Nines under the full Test match format.
“Test match football is really just a whole other ball game,” Sims said.
“It’s really is 50-50 because we’re both both physical sides, we’re both very skillful sides.
“They might have a bit of size on us and we may have a bit of fitness on them but we’re pretty even across the park. There’s literally inches in it.
“Hopefully our forward pack can dominate the middle and set a really good platform for our halves to work off and get some good ball to outside backs and we’ll be in with a good shot.”
