JANE Banks heard it all. Why are women playing rugby league? You should be in the kitchen. What is the point?
Being inducted into the sport’s hall of fame, along with the history-making Great Britain Lionesses side she was part of in 1996, is a pretty good reason.
She can also say something many male players can only dream of saying. I beat the Aussies in Australia.
Aged 17, the Royal Mail worker Jane was the youngest member of the trailblazing side that funded itself to make the trip 28 years ago. She had to wait 26 to get the cap for it.
Now as she joins greats like Jim Sullivan, Billy Boston, Brian Bevan, Ellery Hanley, Martin Offiah and Andy Farrell – both individually and with her team-mates – it all seems worth it.
Jane, who was working part-time in a Pizza Hut when she was selected at 16, said: “It was all self-funded, we had no backing from anybody.
“We had to raise just over £50,000 to get there. It was things like bucket collections and bag packing. We did loads of bucket collections, we were at every match shaking a bucket!
“And we got people coming up going, ‘Women can’t play rugby league,’ as we were shaking a bucket trying to raise money to go on tour to Australia.
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“Attitudes then were very different. We had, ‘Women can’t play rugby,’ a lot. Now we’re the only team to have won a series against Australia on their turf to this day.”
Even though it was the mid-1990s, bank transfers were unknown. So, the Lionesses’ tour manager flew Down Under with a suitcase full of money to pay for accommodation and travel!
And recognition of their 2-1 series victory was not exactly forthcoming.
“We were invited to Wembley for the Challenge Cup final,” Jane added. “We were thinking, ‘We’re Ashes winners, they’re going to parade us around.’
“We got there and it was like, ‘Here’s white tracksuits, white caps. You’re ging to shake that flag while the players come out.’
“It was crazy. At the time, we were like, ‘Are we dancing? A flag?’ It’s an ongoing joke now. It was bloody heavy, I’ll tell you!”
It may be more than 25 years late, but deserving recognition will come tonight when Jane, along with Michelle Land, is inducted individually into the hall of fame, along with the Lionesses – the first team to receive the honour.
Now working as a smoking cessation officer for Warrington Borough Council, the former player for her hometown team is ready for another ‘special’ moment.
She went on to be named player of the tour on the 1998 series in New Zealand and secured the player of the series award in the 2000 World Series, while playing in club matches her home town’s Victoria Park.
But Jane told SunSport: “It’s huge recognition for what we did. I was shocked when I found out I was being inducted as an individual but to be as a team as well makes it more special.
“I’ve not seen a lot of them for a while. We all got back in touch about two years ago when we got Great Britain caps, which we never received at the time.
“A lot of that was because it was all fairly hidden. No-one really knew what we’d achieved, then the heritage programme went through everything and sought us all out.
“At that point, we hadn’t seen each other for pretty much 20 years. Now we’re all on a group chat and talking all the time.”
