Corban Baxter (''

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

'' McGregor; born 10 April 1994) is an Australian international

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

footballer who plays as a , or for th
Sydney Roosters
in the

NSWRL Women's Premiership The NSWRL Women's Premiership, known as the Harvey Norman NSWRL Women's Premiership due to sponsorship from Harvey Norman, is the top level of women's rugby league football in New South Wales, Australia. Run by the New South Wales Rugby League, ...

. Corban is an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

representative.

Background and personal life

Baxter was born in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand, and has Māori ancestry. She moved to Australia with her family at the age of 3. Baxter has a son, who was born when she was aged 16, and has announced she is expecting another child in January 2023.

Playing career

In 2015, Baxter began playing

for the Helensburgh Tigers. That year, she made her debut for

in a 4-all draw with

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

. On 6 May 2016, she made her Test debut for

, starting at in a 16–26 loss to

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. On 2 December 2017, Baxter started at in Australia's 23–16 2017 Women's Rugby League World Cup final win over New Zealand. In June 2018, she represented NSW City at the Women's National Championships. On 17 June 2018, she signed for the

Sydney Roosters Eastern Suburbs District Rugby League Football Club, known as the Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs (Sydney), Eastern Suburbs. The club competes in the National Rugby Lea ...

NRL Women's Premiership team. On 22 June 2018, during the inaugural

Women's State of Origin A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional uter ...

, Baxter suffered a shoulder injury, ruling her out of the entire 2018 NRL Women's season. In Round 1 of the 2019 NRL Women's season, Baxter made her debut for the Roosters in their 12–16 loss to the

New Zealand Warriors The Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as the Aucklan ...

. In October 2019, she represented Australia at the

2019 Rugby League World Cup 9s The 2019 Rugby League World Cup 9s was the first staging of the Rugby League World Cup 9s tournament and took place on 18 and 19 October 2019 at Sydney's Bankwest Stadium. The tournament featured teams from 12 International Rugby League membe ...

, where they lost to New Zealand in the finals. On 22 February 2020, she represented the Māori All Stars in their 4–10 loss to the Indigenous All Stars. On 25 October 2020, she started at and captained the Roosters in their 10–20

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North Ameri ...

loss to the

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Red Hill, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos compete in the National Rugby League (NRL) and play their home games at ...

. On 20 February 2021, she captained the Māori All Stars in their 24–0 win over the Indigenous All Stars. On 27 June 2022, Corban Baxter announced that due to pregnancy, she had missed the 2022 State of Origin match, and would miss the 2022 NRL Women's season (held from August to early October) and the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

(in November 2022).

References

External links

Sydney Roosters profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baxter, Corban 1994 births Living people 21st-century New Zealand sportswomen Australia women's national rugby league team players New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin Women players New Zealand female rugby league players New Zealand Māori women's rugby league team players Rugby league centres Rugby league five-eighths Rugby league fullbacks Rugby league players from Auckland Sydney Roosters (NRLW) players