'Trust me': Calls for key Women's Origin change after 2 million Australians tuned into game one

Women's State of Origin is drawing more bums on seats and eyeballs on screens than ever before, prompting calls for the mate vs mate, state vs state series to expand to 40-minute halves.

Thursday night's contest drew the second-largest TV audience of all-time for a women's game, with more than 2 million Australians tuning into Nine and 9Now to watch the blockbuster spectacle.

The figures are further proof of the growing interest in the women's rugby league, and one of the stars of the game, Kennedy Cherrington, thinks the audience should be given more, calling for the current 70-minute fixtures to be extended to match the men's game.

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In a post to his X account on Thursday night, pundit Dan Nichols from the Rugby League Outlaws vodcast called on Women's State of Origin games to move from 35-minute halves to 40-minute halves to mirror the standard of the men's Origin and NRL.

"These need to be 40-minute halves," he wrote.

"There is no reason they shouldn't be."

NSW Blues lock Kennedy Cherrington replied, declaring that the women's competition would like to play extended halves.

She wrote: "Trust me. WE. WANT. 40. MIN. HALVES."

With its strong television viewership, the series opener outperformed the AFL in prime time to be ranked the No.1 program nationally for people aged 25-54 and 16-39.

With a strong interest in the four-day ticket package for Magic Round, which included the Women's Origin match at Suncorp Stadium, a new all-time high crowd figure for the women's competition was accomplished, with more than 26,000 fans watching from the stands.

Game one of last year's series at Suncorp Stadium set a then-crowd record of 25,492 before game two at McDonald Jones Stadium topped that number with 25,782.

Cherrington joins a chorus of players who are keen to be tested over 80 minutes as the women's game grows in popularity.

Watch the 2025 Women's State of Origin series live and free on Nine and 9Now.

Last year, Queensland Maroons player Evania Pelite also publicly called for Origin games to be extended.

In 2022, both NRLW and Women's Origin games grew from 30-minute halves to the current 35-minute halves.

This signalled a belief in the players' increasing capabilities, however, considerations around player welfare and injury risk have stopped it from progressing further.

Currently, women's international matches, including Women's Rugby League World Cup games, are played with 40-minute halves to total 80 minutes of gameplay.