Meet Yorkshire rugby league lionesses hoping to inspire next generation of players

When Lisa McIntosh and Julie Cronin stepped off the plane after playing their part in the Great Britain Women’s Rugby League tour to Australia in 1996, you wouldn’t know the team had won the series.

“It was if we had just been on holiday,” Lisa says. “Nobody was waiting for us, no press. We just got off the plane and all went home.”

Later this month, the women will have their stories told as part of an exhibition at the York Festival of Ideas.

It is the debut exhibition to be staged by the Life with the Lionesses heritage project, which aims to raise awareness of the role models who pioneered women’s international rugby league.

Lisa, from Halifax and Julie, from York, hope it will encourage others to get involved in the game.

“Some players got individual sponsors,” Lisa recalls. “I worked at a leisure centre and Calderdale Council were brilliant – they sponsored me every time.

“We all helped each other to raise the money we needed by doing things like bucket collections at rugby league grounds. We felt embarrassed at first but we became professionals. People used to give us lots of money – it was brilliant.“

Training began in earnest as the 1996 tour to Australia loomed. “It really stepped up a gear and became more professional, with proper fitness testing,” Lisa explains. “We were serious about our training but we had a great time and that built the team spirit for future tours as well.

“The first game we played against Australia we beat them and the crowd was really hard on us. We had practiced singing the national anthem before the game but we didn’t realise that there was a second verse and when the music kept playing we all just stood there looking at each other.”

Julie started playing when she was 18 with her local team in York. “I was in my twenties and a single mum by the time I was selected to play for Great Britain and I spent the 18 months before the tour training, fundraising, juggling childcare and working,” she says.

“It was really tough. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my family and friends. It was an incredible experience and we were the last rugby league team to beat the Aussies on their home turf.”

The women recall how their achievements were little acknowledged when they returned home.

“After all the time invested preparing for the tour, it was over so quickly and, in a way, I missed it,” Julie says. “Plus back home nobody had really heard of it, so it was as if never happened.”

Lisa went on to become an international coach and toured to France and Russia with the under 21s whilst Julie played for 13 years in total before becoming a coach for younger rugby players, aged five and upwards, for a further seven years. She believes her Rugby League days were the best of her life.

“You need to train hard, play hard and go for what you want,” she says. “It’s about time women got noticed more for what they are doing in rugby league.”

The Life with the Lionesses project is led by Julia Lee from Huddersfield, one of the first women to referee men’s rugby league in the 1980s.

It will showcase the achievements of women involved in rugby league and use the stories of rugby’s women pioneers to inspire new generations.

The exhibition at the York Festival of Ideas will be situated at York Sport Village, part of the University of York and is open from 10am-5pm on 18 and 19 June.