Not only are teams trying to be crowned winners, but players are competing for spots in the State of Origin teams to be announced after it.

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The women’s Origin is less than a month away and this Championship, to be held at Southport on the Gold Coast from Friday to Sunday, is their last chance to impress NSW coach Ben Cross and Queensland coach Jason Hetherington.

It will be a test of their toughness too. Three games in three days is a massive workload, but players are prepared to do it to have more time on the field and be part of history-making events like this.

“It’s the first time there’s a national tournament for women in rugby league. It will be a big three days,” said NSW City half Maddie Studdon.

“I haven’t really played a tournament like this so we’re not sure what it’s going to be like but I know it’s going to be hard because we’re coming up against the NSW Country team who are very talented as well and there’s also the Queensland Country and City plus Defence Force and Affiliated States.

“It will be a hard three days and we’ll just have to work on our recovery really well in those three days. Very excited for it. It’s more footy and I love that.”

Teams are split into two pools. Queensland City, NSW Country and Defence Force are in pool one and Queensland Country, NSW City and Affiliated States in pool two.

Affiliated States and Defence Force play two pool matches on day one, while the City and Country teams play once on the Friday and Saturday. There will be playoffs between first and second, third and fourth and fifth and sixth on the final day.

Players from the NRL elite top 40 are spread out among the teams, with nearly all players at the Nationals, only a few missing because of injury.

Studdon said that distribution means the Championship is wide open.

“We’re all split up, it’s all evenly spread out. I don’t think we get much of that, we always come together as NSW or Queensland then at Jillaroos,” she said.

“Now we’re all spread around the state it’s going to be unreal.”