Danika Priim interview: How former Leeds Rhinos and Bradford Bulls star became the voice of BBC's Rugby League World Cup coverage

She and her team-mates were given the same treatment as their male counterparts, but they were not paid, and the gulf was still vast.

Prrim retired at the age of 37 on this very weekend last year, and she would be forgiven for being a little green with envy that the team-mates she left behind will receive a participation fee for playing in the Rugby League World Cup, which kicks off in Newcastle on Saturday.

However, with a men’s, women’s and wheelchair tournament sharing equal billing in a tournament that promotes inclusivity, Priim is as proud as anyone.

"To hear that the women are now getting participation fees for this World Cup is just huge, it shows the progression of the game,” Priim, who played for Bradford Bulls and Leeds Rhinos Women in a relatively short playing career, tells The Yorkshire Post.

"What is being done in this World Cup is setting a precedent for World Cups going forward.

"I’d like to see the women’s game go professional but it needs to be a balance, we don’t want someone just coming in to put money in for a one-hit wonder, because it’s not sustainable or progressive. The investment in the game needs to be sustainable and gradually drip-feed; maybe you go part-time, maybe you go match fees, maybe you go expenses, but it just gradually builds up as the girls get more exposure.

"We’re on the right lines, and it makes you want to play again, it makes the girls feel like professional athletes at long last.”

Though she may miss out on the springboard that this World Cup might give for the women’s game, Priim has arguably carved out a far more influential role since hanging up the boots.

For the bustling prop has become the authoritative voice on the sport she first fell in love with on the terraces of Headingley back in 1996.

Over the course of her final playing days she mixed competitive action with her job as a teacher and that of a ‘trainee’ pundit, working for BBC local radio and Sky Sports before landing a gig working on Channel 4s Super League production in the season just gone.

Her comfortable nature with microphone in hand, the chemistry with Jon Wilkin and Adam Hills, has led to her being named as part of the BBC Televisio n team for the Rugby League World Cup.

"To be involved with the BBC is a bit of a dream come true,” says Priim. “To have gone from playing in one to now what I think is an equally important role, is just mega. I’m really privileged.”

But which is she most nervous about - playing in a World Cup, or commentating on one?

"As a player you know exactly what your role is,” she replies. “On the field I had to do 15/20-minutes of a hard stint and then I’m off, because I was a prop. It was basically just run forward.

"Preparing for television is completely different – I’m trying to research everybody, trying to be as knowledgeable as I possibly can be. You know have a duty to make sure everybody watching and listening has got all of the information they can.

"They’re similar pressures but you’re desperate to do a good job in both, you work as hard as you want to work to make sure do the best job you possibly can, so I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure I’m ready and prepared. It’s a different challenge for me. I’m a lot more nervous for this than I was as a player.”

The pressure comes because everyone involved in this World Cup, from player to pundit, ticket seller to chief executive, knows this is the biggest opportunity yet to grow the sport beyond the perception outside these parts at least, that rugby league is a northern game.

“It’s an opportunity to display the game and get it out to a wider audience, so the better the job we do, the more people get attracted to it,” says Priim, who is mindful that a powerful voice can carry just as far as a strong image. "We’re going to attract new audiences, not just on the TV, but radio, online, podcasts, we’re reaching a number of demographics. It’s not just the sport, there’s three different competitions so we can really grow and develop the women’s and the wheelchair games as well, which are already on a really good trajectory.

"This can only push them further and to have this coverage for all three competitions is great for the sport.

"And we’ll not compromise one for the other – it’s about putting that spotlight on rugby league, there’s so many great stories, with the teams, players, and the stories behind it.”

Her own story is inspirational enough. The sister to three boys, she ‘did the dancing thing’ but went to rugby to compete with her brothers.

“It started out as a competition as to who who could be better, and I managed to climb quicker than they did,” laughs Priim.

She actually got into rugby union, playing for West Park Bramhope, and only switched to league in 2015 when the England coach, Chris Chapman, called to say he had been following her career and wanted to take her to the 2017 World Cup.

He was as good as his word. Priim was playing for Bradford Bulls by then, training two nights a week and playing on a Sunday as they won the domestic treble. Shortly after she moved to her beloved Rhinos, a club who were already thinking ahead with the women’s game.

“We had access to everything the men had, just no pay,” she says, though she does not begrudge that fact.

If anything, she appreciates her role among the pioneers. When Priim snapped her ACL in 2018 she had to pay for her own operation.

“That was the catalyst that made Leeds Rhinos think we’ve got to look after the girls as well,” she says, “which has meant since then the girls have had much better help with any of their injuries.

"It takes something like that to make people realise there’s a chink in the armour, and I took the blow for that.

“My playing career was a crazy, crazy quick journey, but the best journey ever.”

It is perhaps nothing compared to her trajectory in broadcasting, which has already seen her earn a nomination alongside Ian Wright, Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Ruby Walsh and David Coulthard for Sports Pundit of the Year at the Broadcast Sports Awards next month.

"It’s wicked, I’m the only woman but I see it more as I’m representing rugby league,” she beams, proudly.

"I’m indebted to people like (BBC colleague) Tanya Arnold who has been huge for me, she’s become a real close friend, like a big sister. She’s the first person I call if I’ve got a question about anything or I’m worried about anything. She’s been the biggest mentor and tutor I could have had.

"I pinch myself every day. I’ve gone from loving a sport to playing in it, to now working in it.”

She is also an ambassador for the sport, given her prominent role in living rooms across the country over the next six weeks.

"Rugby league is not affluent, even on the men’s side, so we have to make sure the game as a whole is progressing,” she says. “Keep them men going, build the women up, build the wheelchair up, and the rest will follow.

"The success of the Lionesses this summer is something we can learn from. I’m envious, I’m not ashamed to say, who wouldn’t want to be a professional athlete? But they’ve worked hard, they’ve got good sponsorship deals, they’ve got a good plan in place.

"Look at cricket, look at football, both professional. In rugby union it wasn’t sustainable – I think these sports should get together in a women’s forum and look at what has worked, what hasn’t worked, how do we make this work?

"Use each others models to grow women’s sport, not just the individual games.

"Women are becoming role models. You go from seeing people with your name on the back of their shirts, to getting messages from people asking ‘how did you get into this’? I feel a bit of a phoney if I’m honest, I didn’t go to university, I didn’t have any training for TV, so I know how blessed I am to have the opportunity.

"You never think if yourself as a role model.”

She should start to.

For the first time in Rugby League World Cup history, all 61 games from the men’s, women’s and wheelchair tournaments will be broadcast live on the BBC.