Background
The 2022 NRL Women's season was the 5th season of semi-professional women's rugby league in Australia. The season consisted of five competition rounds, followed by semi-finals contested by the top four teams on the competition ladder.
The two semi-finals were scheduled as the first part of a four-match programme at Suncorp Stadium. They were followed by Prime Minister’s XIII matches between Australia and Papua New Guinea women, and Australia and Papua New Guinea men.
The Newcastle Knights finished second on the 2022 ladder with a record of four wins and one loss. [1] The Knights played the Dragons, who had finished third with a record of three wins and two losses. The Knights scored two converted tries in the opening ten minutes before the Dragons responded with their own converted try in the 12th minute. A third converted try immediately before halftime saw the Knights lead 18–6 at the break. Two Knights tries three minutes apart in the middle of the second stanza extended their lead to 30–6, which was the fulltime score. [2] [3]
The Parramatta Eels lost the first four of their regular season matches before pulling off a major upset by defeating the Brisbane Broncos in the fifth and final round. [4] [5] The result, along with a subsequent loss by the Gold Coast Titans to the undefeated Sydney Roosters saw three of the six teams finish with a record of one win and four losses. Consequently, fourth place was decided by points difference, with the Eels –20 (from 86 points for minus 106 points against) qualifying for the semi-finals ahead of the Broncos –33 and Titans –60. [1]
In their semi-final, the Parramatta Eels opened the scoring with a converted try in the 13th minute before the Roosters responded with an unconverted try four minutes later. The Eels increased their lead from two to eight points with a second converted try in the 22nd minute. The score remained 12–4 at halftime. The Eels scored two more converted tries in the second stanza, crossing in the 47th and 62nd minutes. The Roosters responded with a converted try but trailed by 14 points with five minutes to play. No further scoring occurred, the Eels winning 24—10. [6] [7]
Both the Newcastle Knights and Parramatta Eels qualified for their first NRLW Grand Final in their second season. The Knights had gone winless in the postponed 2021 season played from February to April 2022. The Knights went into the Grand Final with five wins from eleven matches. The Eels had won two NRLW games earlier in the year, missing those semi-finals on points difference. [8] The Eels went into the Grand Final with four wins from eleven matches.
The Eels had won the first match between the teams, 13–12 in February 2022 with Maddie Studdon kicking a field goal just 19 seconds before fulltime. [9] [10] In their second meeting in early September 2022, the Knights crossed for a converted try with less than three minutes remaining to defeat the Eels, 18–16. [11] [12]
Route to the Grand Final| Team | Regular Season | Semi-Finals |
|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|
| Newcastle Knights |  32–14 |  16–12 |  18–16 |  16–18 |  30–8 | 30–6 |
| H | A | H | A | N | N |
| Parramatta Eels | 16–38 | 10–16 |  16–18 | 16–18 | 28–16 | 24–10 |
| H | H | A | N | N | N |
| Key: H = Home venue; A = Away venue; N = Neutral venue |
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