Hope for NRLW Canberra Raiders game to be held in Wagga as major tennis event to come to town

The Canberra Raiders are in talks with Wagga Council to host a game this year. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.

The Canberra Raiders have revealed they are in talks with Wagga Council about potentially hosting an NRLW game in the city later this year.

The match is expected to be a regular season game, a step up from the preseason fixture that was held against the Newcastle Knights in July last year.

“All we can say at this point is that we have been in discussions with the Wagga Wagga City Council (WWCC) about hosting a match this year; we can’t make any further comment until they have made a decision,” Canberra Raiders Head of Communications & Marketing Ben Pollack said.

It appears the ball is firmly in WWCC’s court as to whether the Raiders make the trip west again this year, but the council’s strategic assets manager, Ben Creighton, has remained tight-lipped.

“Wagga will always be keen to host any elite-level sporting competition, and that includes the NRLW,” he said.

“We’ve had a great partnership with the Canberra Raiders over a number of years. I can’t talk specifics, other than the fact that every year, we get together with the Raiders, and we’re talking to them regularly.

“Ultimately, any event that comes here, though, does have to be commercially viable, and we’ve worked through all the logistics or requirements from the NRL as well as the clubs. So it’s not a simple task to negotiate, to enter into that. So we’re having ongoing conversations.”

In addition to talks with the Raiders, WWCC has also announced it has agreed to enter into an agreement with Tennis Australia to host the 2025 Tennis Women’s Pro Tour Tournament at the soon-to-be-completed Jim Elphick Tennis Centre.

“We’ve got the new facility down at Bolton Park and what this essentially does is allow the city to host two pro tennis events, which players will use to get ranking points in an attempt to get on the World Tour,” Mr Creighton said.

“It will have a pretty significant economic impact because we know that we’ll have 130-odd competitors, but we’d also expect something like 3000 spectators over the course of the two weeks of the event.

“At this stage, we’re on track to complete the (Jim Elphick Tennis Centre) around the end of March, with an official opening in the first couple weeks of April. These events aren’t proposed until October, at the end of the year, so there are no dramas at all in regards to whether the centre will be ready in time.”