Rescheduled NRLW season can be a summer hit

The NRL confirmed on Thursday that the women's elite competition, that was due to be played through October and November following the NRL grand final, has again been pushed back to February next year.

It'll be a first for the competition that has traditionally been played alongside the NRL finals and there were fears interest could wane beyond the season's traditional October long weekend finish.

The competition will now quench the thirst of footy-starved fans in early 2022, something that helped propel the AFLW to prominence in its infancy.

It will also kickoff a rare 12-month glut of football for the game's elite female players, with two NRLW premierships, an Origin Shield and World Cup crown on offer in a calendar year.

While the postponement's clearly disappointing given the work that's gone into preparing for an October tournament, Head said it's a good opportunity to grab more eyeballs.

"It is what it is. It's way of the world at the moment so you certainly understand it and knew it was going to come," Head said.

"I think the timing of playing prior to the [NRL] season is going to be a huge bonus for the players. At the end of January everyone's looking for rugby league and now the girls will be the main stage of that.

"Everyone's going to be wanting to watch it and you'll get a lot of numbers on TV and hopefully at the ground. They'll play the next season at the back end of the year and they'll get to see different results in crowds and TV ratings.

"You're looking at an NRLW season going into Origin and that's how an Origin team should be picked, on an NRLW season. When you look at it that way it's certainly headed in the right direction.

"It's a silver lining and I think it's going to be a huge positive for the game and the code moving forward."

Barring some consideration to specific individual circumstances, contracts for the 2021 season will carryover to the rescheduled competition.

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While the departure of Jillaroos centre pairing Jess Sergis and Isabelle Kelly were high profile, Head was confident he had the roster to contend for the title in November. That hasn't changed.

"The good thing we did on the recruitment side of things was we went out and got the right players and that really made a difficult situation pretty easy," Head said.

"The squad we've put together was exactly the one we wanted to go after. Obviously in negotiations you may miss out on a player here or there but, for the majority of our squad, we got exactly what we wanted.

"I really thought we were going to be a club that was a step ahead in the trying circumstances, but we'll keep that group together and get them excited for next season.

"We do have two spots left in our roster we can go and fill in the new year if something pops up, but there's certainly no issues from our point of view in trying to find other players."

NRL CEO Andrew Abdo said circumstances have changed dramatically since the commission pencilled in an October start to the competition, with the infection rate in NSW more than 10 times greater per day than it was when the men's competition was relocated to Queensland.

With four of the six teams based in NSW - and with the Dragons, Eels and Roosters having been subject to the ongoing Greater Sydney lockdown since the end of June - teams have been unable to adequately prepare for a season.

"We explored all avenues, but it is simply not possible," Abdo said.

"When the men's competition was relocated to Queensland, there were 77 cases in NSW on that day. There are now consistently more than 1000 cases a day and restrictions around border closures are much tighter than they were in the middle of the year.

"We also acknowledge that nearly all our NRLW athletes are not full-time athletes. They have careers off the field that limit the ability to be able to relocate for a long period of time and that's something we also considered carefully."

Dates and the draw for the expanded 2021 NRLW competition will be released later in the year.