NRLW: New recruit Gayle Broughton brings GOAT lessons to NZ Warriors
Gayle Broughton helped Brisbane Broncos to an NRLW championship in 2025.
Photo: Chris Hyde/Getty Images
In women’ rugby league, Ali Briggnshaw is generally regarded as the GOAT – greatest of all-time.
Over a career spanning a decade-and-a-half, the Australian half has played 29 tests for the Jillaroos national team and 13 times for Queensland, and helped Brisbane Broncos to four NRLW crowns, captaining all three teams.
Brigginshaw, 36, has already announced the current season will be her last as a player, but former teammate Gayle Broughton is determined to carry on her legacy on this side of the Tasman, when she turns out for the NZ Warriors.
The former Black Ferns Sevens star has made a successful code switch in recent years, playing alongside Brigginshaw, as the Broncos beat defending champions Sydney Roosters in last year’s women’s grand final.
After serving as a somewhat over-qualified apprentice to the master, Broughton, 29, now feels ready to step into a more vocal presence with her new team.
“I definitely think there’s a lot of change to the role I had with the Broncs,” she admitted. “I was lucky enough to sit under the greatest women’s rugby league player in the world, Ali Briggingshaw.
“She helped guide me through, not just last season, but the last three seasons I had to learn from her and I think my role changes at this club.
“Maybe I become a bit of an ‘Ali’ – I don’t know if that means I’m old, but I’ll use the word experienced – just helping lead these girls.
“The last three weeks have been about helping them with little detailed stuff, things that I’ve learnt that helped my game get better. Hopefully, they can take something away from that.”
Broughton was one of three veteran players recruited by Warriors coach Ron Griffiths, as he tries to build on last year’s successful return to the Aussie women’s competition, after a five-year Covid hiatus.
While their 4-7 record left them just outside playoff contention, the raw collection of mainly rugby codehoppers and promising club players left their mark on their opponents, and have returned 12 months better and wiser for 2026.
Griffiths admits the results suffered for lack of experience last season and the team leant heavily on first-time captain Apii Nicholls, one of the club’s original 2018 NRLW signings.
The outstanding fullback emerged as the Warriors Women’s Player of the Year, but often felt powerless to find the words to inspire her younger teammates when they needed it most. That responsibility will be more equitably shared second time round.
“Most games we played in – or all of them – I reckon we were competitive,” Griffiths reflected. “That little bit of experience to close games out or stay in the moment, that’s what we really struggled with.
“We think we’ve got that.”
Broughton brings a pedigree of international success with the NZ sevens programme and retired from that stage, after winning gold at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. She proved a semifinal hero, when she returned to the field as an injury substitute and scored the gamewinning try in overtime against Fiji, before scoring again in the final against France.
Her arrival – along with former Broncos teammates Mele Hufunga and Annetta Nu’uausala, and the eventual addition of sevens buddy Stacey Waaka – has created a noticeable swagger around the Mt Smart clubhouse.
“I have no doubt the players – in particular, the senior players – have a really high expectations of where they want to be this year,” Griffiths observed. “That’s something they have to drive.
“You hear that when they address the group. This is the third week in, and Gayle is slowly finding her way and starting to take control of the huddle with the messages she’s delivering.”
After rubbing shoulders with the best in the business, Broughton is ready to embrace whatever the Warriors need from her.
Gayle Broughton scored some crucial tries in the Black Fern Sevens Tokyo Olympics triumph.
Photo: Steve McArthur/Photosport
“First and foremost, I’m just trying to find my voice and the part I play in this team – the balance I can create and just helping inspire the next generation,” she said.
“There’s amazing talent in this team, across the whole board – from the middles to the outside backs – it’s a pretty lethal team on paper.
“For me, it’s about finding my voice and showing the leadership qualities that I carry. I take a lot of those qualities, not only from my three years at the Broncos, but also the 10-year career I had in sevens.
“I had so many leaders to look up to, some of the best female athletes in New Zealand. To have that opportunity to learn from them, I know how to best lead these girls and help guide them.”
Broughton’s move back home was primarily motivated by a desire to bring her immediate family – partner Tahlia Lawrence and young son Eastyn – back nearer her Taranaki roots, particularly the grandmother that set her on her sporting pathway as a trouble teenager.
“It’s been a dream come true coming back to Aotearoa and being around my closest people,” she said. “Still haven’t got used to Auckland traffic though.”
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