OPINION: So-called 'rugby mad' Kiwis don't appear to have much love for women's rugby, in stark contrast to women's AFL in Australia.
A women's AFL competition has started across the Tasman and the fans can't get enough.
The games have quickly gone from being played at 12,000 capacity grounds to stadiums that hold 24,500.
A staggering 50,000 fans turned up for the competition's opening round, and several thousand were actually left outside one sold-out stadium as organisers had grossly underestimated the demand for tickets.
Organisers of New Zealand's national provincial men's rugby competition would mud wrestle their own mothers for such numbers.
The NRL has taken notice, and is planning its own women's competition to start next season.
What does NZ Rugby have to do to bring such passion for our women's national game here?
In all honesty, I'm not sure that passion exists.
Kiwi rugby fans are barely getting out of bed for our men's game, so maybe showing some love for women's rugby could help reinvigorate the sport here?
The popularity of the Kiwi Ferns games against Australia's Jillaroos at the Auckland Nines each year proves women's oval ball sport has an audience.
Hundreds of thousands of Kiwis tuned in to watch the New Zealand Women's Sevens team battle it out with Australia in the Olympic final in Rio.
If it wasn't for the dubious rugby knowledge of the Spanish referee, the Kiwis might well have taken home gold instead of silver.
I'd like to remind you that the Kiwi men's team, the so-called All Blacks Sevens, crashed out before the medal games.
Did NZ Rugby do anything to capitalise on the 'Sevens Sisters' success?
I haven't seen any evidence of this, and surely the best course of action would've been trying to get some women's games at the fast deflating Wellington Sevens last month.
Showing some love for women's rugby would actually help improve the health of rugby in general.
Would a five-team super women's competition work in New Zealand?
Imagine before every Super Rugby local derby that a women's match was also played as a curtain raiser?
It might encourage a few more fans through the gates, and NZ Rugby desperately needs to win the fans back.
Get thinking NZ Rugby - you might need women's rugby more than it needs you.
Newshub.
