Jillaroos' World Cup win is more of the same old story

Fri, 18 Sept, 7:50 pm, Final score, Tigers 0, Raiders 6

Sat, 19 Sept, 4:05 pm, Final score, Broncos 40, Knights 16

Sat, 26 Sept, 7:50 pm, Final score, Roosters 20, Raiders 10

Sun, 27 Sept, 1:05 pm, Final score, Titans 8, Broncos 20

Sun, 4 Oct, 4:00 pm, Final score, Roosters 30, Broncos 6

Right from the start, the women's Rugby League World Cup final was yet another version of the same old story.

Australia's 34-10 win over New Zealand was the latest procession for the Jillaroos, who cruised to victory on the back of a brilliant and brutal beginning from which the Kiwi Ferns never recovered.

Against the second-best team in the world, the Jillaroos still looked several classes above. By the time New Zealand completed its first set it was already down 12-0.

The Australians fell short of beating the clock in the first half but with a 34-6 lead at the break they went pretty close.

Jess Skinner's side has the greatest collection of talent the women's game has ever seen and it was typified by the likes of Jamie Chapman and Jess Sergis, who both turned one-out runs into long range tries.

Chapman was particularly exceptional. Her first-half hat-trick displayed the full dimensions of her athleticism: the strength of her first try, the graceful finish for her second and the speed she showed for her third earned her player-of-the-match honours.

A repeat of the 2022 final, which Australia won by 50, looked to be on the cards before a meandering second half in the thick Brisbane humidity and by the end, the match was falling over the line.

It was far from their greatest performance but the Jillaroos are the kind of team who would be good enough on a bad day and New Zealand, like everyone else who's run into the Jillaroos through this World Cup, was helpless to stop what was coming.

You might as well ask them to stop the tide coming in or stop the sun rising in the morning.

The Kiwi Ferns did a better job of it in the second half but the contest was already gone. Winning the second half is little consolation if it's a World Cup final and what long felt inevitable came to pass when Isabelle Kelly lifted the trophy.

This victory and that inevitability is both a measure of how far the game has come and a reminder of the cost of that progress.

Through the development of the NRLW, Australia is so much better than everyone else that its dominance threatens the international game as a spectacle.

Australia has so many players who can light up a match. Chapman's speed, power and finishing abilities, Jessie Southwell's kicking game and Olivia Kernick's cunning and strength are all rugby league joys to behold.

But it always adds up to the same thing. We always end up in the same place and if the journey always has the same ending it makes it harder to follow it through to the end.

It has made this tournament a slog and there is no way out of it either, not for a while yet.

Samoa and Fiji both have improvement in them and New Zealand will get better as the Warriors settle back into the NRLW, but the depth of Australia's talent is near bottomless.

For any other nation, losing a player like Millie Elliott to retirement would be a hammer blow that leaves behind an enormous space to fill.

But the only problem for Australia will be choosing between the excellent options at their disposal.

Sarah Togatuki, fresh off making the Dally M team of the year, can't make this side. Neither can Cronulla's Ellie Johnston or Tigers signing Rima Butler.

For any other nation, they'd be automatic selections every single time. For Australia, they must wait their turn.

Couple that with the fact that the best football is still ahead of someone like Jesse Southwell, a World Cup winner at 21, and this era of Australian domination has no end in sight.

They are not a big fish in a small pond; they are a leviathan in a bathtub and even as they crush all comers, they keep growing.