Ali Brigginshaw’s One Last Dance: 2026 Farewell Season, Stats & Profile

It’s rare for a farewell season to get its own Instagram handle — but Ali Brigginshaw isn’t a typical player: the Brisbane Broncos five-eighth was the first player signed to the club’s NRLW roster and 2026 is billed as her last dance. This profile sorts out what’s actually on the record about her career, her height, and the personal details she’s kept out of it.

Current NRLW team: Brisbane Broncos ·
Position: Five-eighth / halfback ·
Career span: 15+ years ·
Contract status: Re-signed through end of 2026 ·
Captaincy: Queensland Maroons captain

One player, twelve file entries — and a pattern worth noting: the official record is consistent where it matters most, and silent where she wants it to be.

Does Ali Brigginshaw have any children?

There is no public record of Ali Brigginshaw having children. Her official profiles cover her playing career in detail without mentioning a partner or children, and she has not publicly discussed parenthood in any of the interviews referenced on those pages.

• The official record is limited to rugby biography: junior club, debut year, representative milestones, and club honours
• No interview coverage naming children appears in the sources reviewed for this article

What this means: for anyone searching whether Brigginshaw has kids, the accurate answer is that the official record is silent — and she has chosen to keep that part of her life firmly outside the rugby file.

Who is Ali Brigginshaw’s partner?

No partner is named on any of Brigginshaw’s official profiles, and none of the sourced reporting reviewed for this article identifies one. As with her family life generally, the public record — the NRL’s Jillaroos player profile and the Broncos’ team page — is strictly professional.

Who is Ali Brigginshaw’s father?

• Her father is not named in the public sources reviewed for this article
• What is on the record: she grew up in Ipswich, Queensland, and began playing rugby league at age 10
• After years of touch football, when women’s league options were limited, she returned to rugby league in 2009

That 2009 return mattered immediately: it produced Queensland and Australian debuts in the same year, and it set up the representative career that followed. The pattern: Brigginshaw’s biography is built from rugby milestones, not family details — the question of her father is part of a larger, deliberate privacy boundary.

Is Ally Brigginshaw retiring from rugby league?

First, the spelling: it’s Ali, not Ally. The “Ally” version is a common search misspelling, but her official profiles all use Ali. On the retirement question itself, the short answer is: she has re-signed with the Brisbane Broncos through the end of the 2026 NRLW season, and the club has made clear that season is her farewell.

• NRLW status: re-signed through the end of 2026, with the club announcing her return to her junior club ahead of what it called her final NRLW season on January 7, 2026 (Brisbane Broncos club announcement)
• The campaign: the farewell run is promoted under the banner “One Last Dance,” with a dedicated Instagram account of that name
• Representative football: the club’s announcement refers to her final NRLW season; it does not state whether State of Origin or Jillaroos appearances end with it

Why this matters: the difference between an NRLW farewell and a full retirement changes how 2026 should be read — it’s the difference between one last Broncos season and the final time she pulls on a Maroons or Jillaroos jersey. Her resume entering that season includes 17 Tests for Australia, seven tries and 16 goals as the Jillaroos’ all-time leading points scorer, four NRLW titles as captain, and the 2020 Dally M Medal. The farewell is earned.

How tall is Ali Brigginshaw?

Brigginshaw is listed at 178 cm (5 ft 10 in) on every official profile reviewed for this article — the Brisbane Broncos team profile, the NRL Jillaroos player profile, and the NRL State of Origin player profile all agree on the same figure. Even the community-maintained Wikipedia biography matches.

What is the average height of NRL players?

• The NRL’s official profiles don’t publish a league-wide height average, and the sources reviewed for this article don’t include one
• What the official record does establish is Brigginshaw’s own listing — 178 cm, identical across her Broncos, Jillaroos, and State of Origin profiles
• At that height, she fits the physical profile of a long-striding playmaker — the kind of half who can see over the defensive line — rather than the smaller scooting dummy-half build

Who is the smallest player in the NRL?

• No official NRL page designates a single “smallest player,” and the label shifts in fan discussions every time rosters change
• The sources reviewed for this article don’t name one, so this article won’t guess
• The more stable comparison is within the women’s game, where Brigginshaw’s 178 cm is the verified constant across every profile

How tall is Reece Walsh?

• Reece Walsh has an official NRL profile that lists his height, and that league page is the authoritative reference for his current measurement
• That profile is not among the sources reviewed for this article, so his exact figure isn’t repeated here
• The comparison worth keeping: Brigginshaw’s 178 cm is verified across every official profile of hers, making her height the rare stat that needs no cross-checking

The trade-off: at 178 cm, Brigginshaw has the build of a modern long-striding playmaker, and the official record is consistent enough that the number shouldn’t be a debate — even if fan forums keep trying to make it one.

Which NRL player has ADHD?

Ali Brigginshaw has not publicly discussed an ADHD diagnosis, and no official profile or sourced interview reviewed for this article mentions one. This section addresses the broader question because it keeps appearing in search — and the honest answer is that the public record is thin.

• No NRL player with a publicly confirmed ADHD diagnosis is named in the sources reviewed for this article
• Brigginshaw’s official profiles are silent on ADHD and other health conditions

Which famous rugby player has dementia?

• The most frequently cited case in public reporting is Steve Thompson, the England rugby union 2003 World Cup winner, whose early-onset dementia diagnosis became public after he spoke about it
• Rob Burrow, the Leeds Rhinos rugby league great, is often grouped into the same conversation — but his diagnosis was motor neurone disease, related to broader neurological injury concerns yet a different condition from dementia
• Neither case is part of Ali Brigginshaw’s record; they are cited here because they dominate the search conversation around rugby and dementia

Which NRL players have autism?

• No NRL player with a publicly confirmed autism diagnosis is named in the sources reviewed for this article
• Autism disclosure remains a largely private matter in the NRL, and this article won’t speculate on unconfirmed names

What this means: the health conversation in rugby is growing — Thompson’s and Burrow’s cases proved that — but the line between documented diagnosis and internet rumor is exactly where this article refuses to cross.

Editor’s note: This profile is built exclusively from official club and league profiles plus the sourced reporting linked inline. Where the public record is silent — family, health, or post-2026 representative plans — this article says so rather than guessing.

The record in quotes

A player’s public record is a form of autobiography. These three entries — from the farewell campaign, the league, and the encyclopedia — mark its edges.

“One Last Dance.”

— One Last Dance Instagram campaign

“The longest-serving Jillaroo in the current squad.”

— NRL official Jillaroos player profile

“Ali Brigginshaw is an Australian rugby league footballer who has played for the Brisbane Broncos in the NRL Women’s Premiership and Valleys Diehards in the QRL Women’s Premiership.”

— Wikipedia (community-maintained biography)

What 2026 means for Brigginshaw and the Broncos

Brigginshaw has already secured the two things most players never get: a documented place in her sport’s origin story — first player signed, founding captain, four titles — and the rare opportunity to choose her own ending. The 2026 season gives her a final run at a fifth NRLW premiership with the club she helped build, and it gives the Broncos one last chance to send the competition’s most decorated captain out with the title the farewell narrative demands. For Brisbane, the choice is clear: build the farewell season around her, or watch the era of the NRLW’s founding captain close with an asterisk.

Frequently asked questions

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