Eels and Jillaroos star Kennedy Cherrington pleads for rugby league to give Perth a look-in

At 18 she moved to Sydney from Perth, leaving behind her family and friends to chase an opportunity that simply wasn’t available to her in Western Australia.

It was just five years ago, but it’s still the case now. If you’re a talented young athlete interested in rugby union or rugby league, you simply have to leave the state to make it.

“When I come back here, I have so many questions, not just young girls but young boys too, just saying, ‘How did you do this?’” she tells CODE Sports from Perth this week.

“I hate to say it but I tell them, I had to move. And that’s what I don’t want to say.

“I don’t want to tell them the only way you can make it is to move, because there’s so many people who move from WA to the Gold Coast, Cairns, Melbourne or NSW to get an opportunity, and that’s what I don’t like because you’re taking away the talent from WA.”

It’s a catch-22. The more talent that leaves the state, the less talent there is to validate Western Australia as a worthwhile investment for the NRL.

The 23-year-old Jillaroos debutant has always been passionate about increasing funding and pathways resources in Australia’s western state. But after a story emerged this week that North Sydney Bears have been pledged $15 million in funding if they’re to become the NRL’s 18th team, Cherrington chimed in again.

She has seen first-hand the amount of talent that goes to waste in Western Australia and is pushing for that 18th licence to be granted and based in Perth with a women’s team to match. And if not, at least some more money pumped into the state.

For years rugby league has toyed with the idea of reviving a team in Western Australia after the failed Western Reds franchise of the 1990s. There was a bid for the WA Reds in the mid-2000s and then West Coast Pirates in 2012, but nothing has been able to get off the ground.

Each time it’s like a taunt to rugby league fans and young hopefuls who may not have the means or support to be able to uproot their life to move east.

With the competition expanding to 17 teams in 2023 and an 18th team on the horizon, Cherrington is pleading with anyone who will listen to take a look at what the game is missing in Western Australia.

“It shouldn’t be like that. You shouldn’t have to move states to get a tiny look in. It’s the biggest gamble, moving your whole life at 17 or 18,” she says.

“It’s not until you get to Perth that you see the work that staff and volunteers and coaches and players and fans put in, it just feels like they should be rewarded. There’s so much talent.

“I guess I’m just trying to push for resources. Even the tiniest amount of funding. Like the men’s and women’s under 18s state sides always win but after that, there’s nothing. Where do they go? There’s no NRLW coaches or talent scouts down there.”

She puts her money where her mouth is too. Before flying into Jillaroos camp on Sunday, Cherrington made a quick visit back to Perth this week to donate her $10,000 prize money from the Veronica White Medal she was awarded on grand final day. It’s a huge honour, presented to an NRLW player who has done outstanding work in the community each year.

Cherrington selflessly split her prize money to share equally between a charity, Heart Kids, her junior club the Rockingham Sharks and NRL Western Australia.

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Cherrington was born in Sydney but her family relocated to Perth when she was 10 so her father could take up a job in the mines.

She has a congenital heart disease and had open heart surgery at the age of eight. When she was healthy enough to begin playing sport she latched onto anything to help her recovery. In Perth she could play netball on Saturdays and rugby league on Sundays with the boys, until she had to give it up when the pathway ended at the age of 12.

Rugby union offered an alternative, and her parents, Winiata and Andrea, worked their butts off to pay for her to fly all over the country playing rugby, as well as support her three younger siblings Winiata (21), Reuben (19) and Kahurangi (12).

And it was on these trips she realised the struggle wasn’t the same for most kids in the eastern states.

“As I was coming through high school I was making my state teams, I was flying out ridiculously, my parents put their heart and soul into sacrificing anything they could because they wanted to send me over,” she says.

“I was going to NSW, Queensland, I remember flying to Darwin, Adelaide, Tasmania. There were so many comps all over the place and it’s pretty pricey from Perth so we were doing countless fundraisers.

“There was just no money inserted into our programs. You get over there and all of the kids from NSW or Queensland, their fees were covered. And it’s like, mum and dad were breaking their back at work, trying to provide for us, and then sending me on these extra additional trips to try and have the same opportunity as them, and it shouldn’t be like that.

“That sparked the motivation for me to capitalise on the opportunities my parents had given me. When I moved to Sydney when I was 18 I thought, I can’t mess this up. I had to move states to have an opportunity because if I didn’t, then I don’t know what I’d be doing to be honest.”

She knew during high school that Perth wasn’t for her, but without the support of her family and friends she wouldn’t have been able to uproot her life to chase a dream. She was still in the rugby union pathway, but after the Western Force was cut in 2017, it meant an end to the goal she was chasing and left a huge gap between burgeoning talent and a chance.

“After school I felt like I was in a sticky situation. I thought, if I stay here rugby is going to go nowhere. And I was completely right. They struggled for a year and a half and then when Covid happened, league and union really struggled. Especially the women’s pathways.

“I ended up having a family, that I was close to, open their doors to me in Sydney, so I stayed with them but I’ve been grinding ever since.

“For me, I think it shouldn’t be like that. Without the support from the people around me, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

“There’s other kids probably equally as talented as me, if not more so, who don’t have that type of support so they can’t move over, or they don’t have the confidence to move over. I’ve had so many people reply to my stories and say they wish they took the leap to move, and they were unreal when they were younger. So it really depends on your support system.”

Once she made the leap, Cherrington played club rugby and was in the rugby sevens system, and was at the Waratahs for three seasons. She landed in the NRLW space in 2020 with the Sydney Roosters, and is now playing for Parramatta, representing western Sydney where she originated.

Her career has come full circle, and now her family is finally all reunited in the Shire, but it has taken years to get to this point.

Which is why she’s so passionate now.

“I’ve always pushed from the get go, whether it’s union or league, for people to just have a look on the other side of the country. It’s just an effort thing,” she says.

“I love the NRL, I’m pretty cool with Andrew Abdo and Peter V’landys, but when I see them at events I’ll tell them. I’m not shy to be like, ‘When are we getting a Perth side?’

“There’s people who are willing to throw money at it. I feel like it’s appropriate now to be talking about it with talks of an 18th team coming in. I don’t want it to just be talk this time.”