Kylie Hilder is sure the NRLW will go ahead this year, but she admits there are a few hurdles.
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Hilder has an assistant coaching role with the Sydney Roosters. She also coached NSW in the State of Origin clash against Queensland earlier this year.
The NRLW was increased from four to six teams for this year, with Newcastle Knights, Parramatta and Gold Coast accepted, although New Zealand opted for a 12 month hiatus due to problems caused by COVID-19 restrictions. However, the current lockdown in NSW has pushed the elite women's rugby league competition back to October.
"We are still scheduled to start the weekend of the NRL grand final,'' Hilder, from Forster on the NSW Mid-North Coast, said.
"We're supposed to start training at the end of this month, but I can't see that happening.''
However, Hilder assured that the competition will 'definitely go ahead.'
"It will just be when or how. We may go into a bubble like the men,'' she explained.
Hilder has been associated with the Roosters are a player and coach since the NRLW was inaugurated in 2018. She also coached the Roosters in the NRLW Nines played in Perth in February 2020.
Front rower Tayla Pedebon, 21, from Gloucester is set to make her NRLW debut with the Roosters this year. Hilder was associated with Predebon in her capacity with NSW Women's Premiership side, the Central Coast Roosters.
Meanwhile Hilder ultimately has ambitions to take on a coaching role with an NRL club. Hilder had her first experience of elite coaching alongside assistant Geoff Toovey for the Sky Blues in June, and she has not ruled out the possibility of mentoring an NRL side, NRL.com reports.
"I'm a big believer that the best person should be coaching the (NRL) sides," Hilder told Wide World of Sports' Sunday Footy Show.
"I would be lying if I said I wouldn't like to get to that point (coaching in the NRL), absolutely I would, but it's all about making sure that you're the right person for the right job at the end of the day and that's right through our game.
"Just because we're a female coach, doesn't mean we have to be coaching female sides.
"If the opportunity came and I felt that I was at that level, then absolutely.
"I think we're getting to the stage where we should be getting every opportunity that the men get and that's on the field but also off the field opportunities as well, and that's in coaching, refereeing, sports trainers," Hilder said.
"I know NSWRL CEO David Trodden is a massive supporter of that, and as an organisation at NSW we're working really hard on supplying those opportunities.
"The game is increasing - six years ago we only had 6000 females registered, we've now got nearly 23,000.''