Leeds Rhinos women close their Super-fours campaign against St Helens at AMT Headingley tomorrow (Saturday) needing to build some form ahead of next week’s semi-final.

Rhinos will play host to either York Valkyrie or Saints on Friday, September 18, with the winners of that going through to the Betfred Women’s Super League title decider at Wigan Warriors on Sunday. September 27. That means Leeds – who will welcome back player of the year Ella Donnelly – have nothing to play for on the table this weekend, but after three successive defeats, at York and then back-to-back by Wigan, coach Lois Forsell is looking for a positive response.

Leeds were crushed 50-12 at home by Wigan last week - after a 26-20 loss in the previous match - and Forsell admitted: “It was a poor performance. The last couple of weeks we’ve not started well so that is something for us to look at as coaches and players. But then [last week] we didn’t do enough to get a foot back in the game, so it was really frustrating and deflating.”

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Leeds Rhinos' Ruby Bruce gets a pass away during last week's loss to Wigan Warriors. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com.

placeholder image — Leeds Rhinos' Ruby Bruce gets a pass away during last week's loss to Wigan Warriors. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com.

Forsell accepted the most recent defeat was “a step back”, but insisted: “In terms of where we go, it’s not the end of the world. It is a one-off game, [in the previous match] we ran them closer. We know we have to keep getting better and I don’t think we did that. We need to review that and probably just do our jobs a bit better.

“There were opportunities we missed. It wasn’t that we played to our full potential and it wasn’t good enough, I don’t think we showed our potential or put that into practice. There’s some things we’ve got to get right to make sure we start better and that will allow us to get in the arm wrestle.”

Individual defensive efforts by the likes of Evie Cousins and Ruby Bruce were positives from last week, but Forsell stressed the team as a whole need to be better for longer. She added: “There’s some moments you can pick out that show they really wanted to try hard for their teammates, but we didn’t do that consistently enough and they got a bit frustrated about opportunities missed.

“We had a better start in the second half; for 10 minutes we looked a much better side, but we can’t just turn up for 10 minutes in the second half. We’ve got to piece a performance together a lot more than that.”

Leeds Rhinos' Lucy Murray is tackled during the defeat by Wigan Warriors last week. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com.

Saints go into the final round behind York on points difference, but - with Valkyrie travelling to unbeaten Wigan - know a win at Headingley in Saturday’s 2pm kick-off could secure a semi-final return next week.

Rhinos women (v St Helens): from Enright, Stead, Cousins, Whitehead, Howard, Walker, Donnelly, Bennett, Glynn, Owen, Murray, Brown, Bruce, Boyd, Short, Bryer, Blakey, Naidole, Hirst, Elliston, Sykes.

Kick-off: Saturday, 2pm. Referee: Freddie Lincoln.