Wolves women's captain Roxy Mura to wed Ben Murdoch-Masila

WHEN the Warrington Wolves women’s team skipper goes into the debut match against Barrow on April 7 she will do so with a new surname.

It is certainly exciting times for Roxy Mura, who will lead a newly formed team into a maiden Championship campaign just eight days after marrying her fiancé – the Wire and Tonga international pack star Ben Murdoch-Masila.

Wire's back-row forward Ben Murdoch-Masila. Picture: Mike Boden

Warrington Wolves women's team captain, Roxy Mura

The pair, who hail from New Zealand and first moved to England via Australia a little over three years ago, tie the knot in Warrington next Saturday (March 30).

“It’s about time,” said Roxy, 26, who will be a key component in Wolves’ back row.

“We’ve been together 10 years.

READ AND WATCH: What goes on at training night for Wolves' women and girls

“We just thought we weren’t ever going to be the couple to get married. We act like a married couple anyway.

“But then we thought we’re living over here, so why not? It’s pretty cool.”

While Roxy and Ben, whose daughter Acacia-Rose Murdoch turns five on Monday, both like to ‘rip it up’ on the pitch, they acknowledge they are ‘quiet’ people off it and are going to keep things low key on Saturday.

Roxy, Acacia-Rose and Ben at The Halliwell Jones Stadium this year

“We’re just going to the registry office,” said Roxy, a sports coach at Warrington Youth Club and rugby league coach with the Warrington Wolves Foundation.

“We only have immediate family flying over - his parents, my parents and our siblings.

“We’re going to Spirit Restaurant (she points to it while chatting at the Victoria Park training base) for dinner and that’s it.

“We’re just keeping it nice and simple, how we want it.

“I can’t wait and neither can Ben, which is cool.”

She revealed how the proposal took shape – and that Ben ended up asking for her hand in marriage twice about 16 months ago!

“He made the decision to ask me at the end of the World Cup tour in New Zealand,” she said.

“After his final game, he came home and popped the big question which I was quite surprised about.

“I was ‘yeah, I’ll marry you’.

“He was standing up next to me and asked me and I said ‘can you get on your knee?’ He was like ‘Oh sorry’ and asked me again.”

Their honeymoon, with destination yet to be determined, is on hold until the end of the rugby league season.

Roxy highlighted how their partnership blossoms.

“In our relationship nobody wears the pants. We work together,” she said.

And Roxy acknowledged how her husband-to-be inspires her on the rugby field.

“He’s my biggest role model,” she said of The Wire’s 28-year-old bulldozer back-rower, who joined from Salford Red Devils after spells with Wests Tigers and Penrith Panthers in Australia’s NRL competition.

“I just love the way he plays.

“When he comes home and he’s done a massive run and scored a big try carrying three or four players over the line, I’m like ‘how did you do that?’

“I’m amazed, but he seems to do it week in, week out so I just look up to him all the time.”

Ben Murdoch-Masila is pleased with this try against Castleford after leaving bodies scattered in his wake. Picture: Mike Boden

She wants to inspire him with her rugby league abilities too.

“He comes down to all my matches and watches me play,” she said.

“After the game or at half-time he’ll give me tips.

“He’ll be like ‘babe, you need to go in or go out a bit more’ and it’s really good to have someone that’s there and supporting me every game.”

Roxy has gained substantial experience playing rugby league, having first transferred to the contact sport from touch rugby that she started playing in New Zealand and continued in Australia.

“I just love tackling people and not getting in trouble for it,” said the former South East Queensland player with a huge grin on her face.

“That’s the main thing I like about the game, but making friends as well and there’s a lot of teamwork which I love.”

Last season she played in the first Women’s Super League campaign for St Helens.

The Wolves coaches, headed by Lee Westwood and assisted by Wire legend Ben Westwood, picked her out as the ideal captain – a role she had not expected to come her way.

She said: “It’s a massive honour and a shock as well because, as my partner Ben said, ‘we’re not very talkative people’ so I was like ‘why am I being the captain?’

“But Wez (Le Westwood) said it’s because I can lead on the field, so that’s why.”

There is a clear aim this year, but the sense of being able to achieve such a goal must have seemed like a pipedream when trials first took place in December.

But the squad has taken shape considerably in the space of four months, showing huge potential in a narrow loss to Championship title favourites and rivals Huddersfield and a close win against neighbours Leigh Miners Rangers in two friendlies.

“I think the biggest goal is to make it to Super League next year,” said Roxy.

“That’s what we want. We want to get the girls up to that level.

“There’s been a massive growth in the team.

“Most of the girls were talent transfers, so we have had the likes of netball players join us and a bobsledder too.

“But with all those different skills being put into our training we’ve seen everybody grow.

“At our first training session it was hard to just get a simple passing drill together but now everyone’s spot-on. We’ve improved so much it’s amazing.

“We’ve got a couple of mums, a few young ones and few old ones, but we gel together really well as a team.

“There’s no groups in the team, we’re all one.

“Having Wez training us and especially Bennie Westwood, who is a massive inspiration for the girls, everyone wants to build us and it’s really cool.”

The women already have fans and are hoping for many more at their first home game against Widnes Vikings on Sunday, April 14, at Victoria Park Stadium.

“At our friendlies we’ve got fans coming already so that’s awesome to see,” she said.

“So I can’t wait for the first home game to see how many people want to come and watch us then. Their support would be great.”