Home pride crucial for Leeds Rhinos women as key duo return for big York Valkyrie clash
Leeds Rhinos’ women are improving with every game, forward Ella Donnelly reckons.
Rhinos face York Valkyrie at AMT Headingley tomorrow (Saturday), a fortnight after outclassing Featherstone Rovers 60-6 to pick up their first win of the Betfred Women’s Super League season. That came a week after they opened their campaign with a battling 18-10 loss at Wigan Warriors, who currently hold all the major trophies.
Rhinos have yet to beat a top-four team this term, having lost to St Helens at the semi-final stage of the Challenge Cup, but Donnelly insisted: “We have developed a lot through the first few games. We had that unfortunate defeat against Saints, which was really disappointing, but the game against Wigan was much better for us.
“It wasn’t a crazy scoreline - like some of their games this season - and we have learned and taken a lot from that. York is always a big, physical game and with it being at home, that’s something else we can take pride in. They are our rivals so it will be a good opportunity to see what we can do against them this year.”
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Wigan are the team to beat, but there seems to be little between Rhinos, Saints and York and a top-two finish is wide open, making tomorrow a key fixture. “We always want to show up and compete,” Donnelly stressed. “I think we have got a really good mindset this season and we are fixing things up game by game. As the season goes on we are looking to keep progressing.”
Though missing out on Wembley was a huge blow, Donnelly said Rhinos put the weekend without a game to good use. “It was a good opportunity for us,” she added. “We had three training sessions, everyone’s looking in good form and we’ve got a few people coming back from little niggles.”
Lucy Murray and Georgia Elliston who have both been named in their initial 21-player squad after missing the win against Rovers because of injury. The Super League game kicks-off at 2pm after the clubs’ under-19s meet in a curtain-raiser at 11.30am.
Leeds Rhinos (v York Valkyrie): from Enright, Stead, Whitehead, Howard, Walker, Donnelly, Bennett, Glynn, Owen, Murray, Brown, Bruce, Boyd, Short, Bryer, Sharp, Blakey, Wambalu, Hirst, Elliston, Kennedy.
Kick-off: Saturday, 2pm.