Star player leads team into World Cup final, cheered on by her wife (who’s also her boss)
New Zealand's Raecene McGregor is an out and proud LGBTQ athlete who'll play in her third World Cup final this weekend.
Mark
The Rugby League World Cup is drawing to a close in Australia, and one of the biggest stars in the women’s tournament will provide LGBTQ representation in the final.
New Zealand‘s Raecene McGregor scored the seventh and last try for her team in Saturday’s 32-0 semifinal victory over Samoa in Newcastle, New South Wales.
The star halfback was also captaining the Kiwi Ferns and was influential throughout due to her accomplished kicking game.
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The host nation’s team — nicknamed the “Jillaroos” — are waiting in the final at Lang Park in Brisbane on Sunday. McGregor will be hoping it’s a case of third time lucky, having been part of New Zealand sides that lost to Australia in the last two World Cup finals.
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Sunday’s showdown will also be played on the second anniversary of McGregor’s marriage to her wife, Jamilee.
They were previously teammates at NRL Women’s Premiership club St George Illawarra Dragons, and also for regional team North Sydney Bears. In 2026, McGregor switched across the Sydney suburbs to play for Wests Tigers.
The NRLW is a semi-professional competition with a season that runs from July to October each year. There are plans to make the league fully professional, but for now, players still have day jobs.
That’s the case for the McGregors, and unusually, they are manager and employee off the field. Jamilee’s family operates a successful flooring business, and that’s where Raecene has worked as a floor fit layer for the last five years.
In a recent interview with the Tigers website, the New Zealand co-captain discussed how she juggles her commitments as an athlete with her day job.
“It is my wife’s company, so she’s the boss!” said McGregor. “But she and the team there understand my commitments with footy.
“I enjoy my job. We mainly do commercial work like schools, hospitals and rubber gyms.
“I don’t deal with the calls. That’s all hers. I’m the muscle, apparently, so I come in and do the hard work.
“I like to get things done. If there’s a task that’s been set, I’m like, ‘follow my lead because this is how we’re going to do it.’ I’m probably like that everywhere.”
Raecene McGregor proposed to her wife at the Eiffel Tower
McGregor was born in Sydney, but both her parents are Kiwis. Growing up, she represented Australia in rugby sevens and was part of the team that won gold at the 2014 Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China.
She had only just turned 20 when she played in her first World Cup in 2017, and scored a try in the final as the Kiwi Ferns lost to Australia.
McGregor has been an NRLW Premiership champion three times in her career so far — twice with the Brisbane Broncos, and once with the Sydney Roosters.
In 2022, she was named NRLW Player of the Year and also won the IRL Golden Boot Award for best international player.
She started dating Jamilee (nicknamed “Juju”) in 2021, and the following year, they announced their engagement following McGregor’s proposal at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. A few months later, they joined the Dragons at the same time ahead of the 2023 NRLW season.
The couple’s beautiful wedding day was held at Curzon Hall, a sandstone castle in Sydney, in November 2024.
McGregor was named the Tigers’ best player in her debut season with the team in 2026 and also won the league’s Halfback of the Year award. She has carried her good form into the international tournament.
After her try against Samoa secured New Zealand’s appearance in a seventh successive Women’s Rugby League World Cup final, she said: “It’s really special.
“I’ve spoken about the last couple of weeks how we haven’t done ourselves justice, but I think we came out here today and really proved that we’re a team to be reckoned with.”
The previous four World Cup finals have also been between the Kiwi Ferns and the Jillaroos, with the latter triumphing in the last three.
Other out LGBTQ players who have featured in the women’s tournament this year include England prop Mary Coleman, who plays for Wigan Warriors where she met her wife, Sinead.
In terms of Rugby League World Cup greats, three-time winner Ali Brigginshaw of Australia is a notable LGBTQ icon in the sport. She married her wife Kate in 2020.
There are two rugby codes, union and league, and in the Women’s World Cup for union held in England last year, the number of players known to be publicly out as LGBTQ was at least 54 (although research carried out before and during the tournament suggested the representation was even greater).
Meanwhile, the final of the men’s Rugby League World Cup this year will also be contested by New Zealand and Australia, immediately after the women’s final at Lang Park.
Reece Walsh scored three of Australia’s eight tries in the semifinal as they beat Samoa 44-12 in Sydney.
The 24-year-old is one of the sport’s hottest talents and has been on the receiving end of homophobic comments in recent years for wearing nail polish, the result of his daughter Leila’s creativity.
Australia’s men’s team is nicknamed the “Kangaroos” and has long dominated their sport, winning the World Cup in 12 of the 17 times it has been staged.
There has never been an out gay or bi player active in a men’s Rugby League World Cup. Neither Ian Roberts nor Gareth Thomas were selected for the tournament while they were active in the sport.
Earlier this year, Kane Evans came out publicly as gay after his retirement from rugby league, having played for Fiji at the 2013 and 2017 World Cups.
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