Leeds Rhinos women face must-win derby as Wigan Warriors go ahead in race for home Super League semi-final
Leeds Rhinos’ women need to right some wrongs when they play host to Featherstone Rovers on Sunday (noon).
Rhinos’ hopes of finishing as runners up to St Helens on the Betfred Women’s Super League table and securing a home semi-final suffered a major setback when they were beaten 32-6 by York Valkyrie at AMT Headingley seven days earlier.
With two games left, Saints still need a point to confirm top spot and will be expected to do that away to Warrington Wolves on Saturday. Below them, second-placed Wigan Warriors, Leeds - who have slipped to third - and York are separated only by points difference.
Wigan play host to York on Sunday before a home game against Rhinos next weekend, when Valkyrie visit Featherstone. York will be without star full-back Tara-Jane Stanley after she sustained anterior cruciate ligament (acl) damage late in the win at Leeds.
The battle for home advantage in the play-offs will go right to the wire and prop Bella Sykes insisted Leeds need a quick response to last Sunday’s disappointment. “That was a game we had in our eyeline to go and do really well in and it didn’t go our way,” Sykes said.
“This weekend is definitely an opportunity to make up for that and hit the ground running again on to Wigan the week after. The next few games are a really important part of our season and we have got to win those games now. After a loss, it’s all eyes on this weekend and doing the best we can to get the result we need.”
Rhinos were without some influential players, but assessing what went wrong against York, Sykes - whose father Nathan Sykes played 191 games for Castleford Tigers from 1991-2004 - refused to use injuries as an excuse. She said: “It’s a difficult one.
“We have watched it back and as a collective we can all have a look at ourselves and say it wasn’t our best performance, as individuals and a team. Probably those things combined are what made it not a good performance.
“It is hard to pinpoint one reason, but it was just numerous errors and us not playing to our potential that meant we didn’t get the result. York were the better team, they performed well and we didn’t.”
Featherstone are bottom of the table, having lost all 12 of their Super League games this term and Rhinos need to not only win, but also boost their points difference of 346. Wigan are on 404 and York 315 and Sykes said: “This weekend is probably a good opportunity to us to really put a good performance together and fix up our errors and completion rate and get into the good habits we’ll need going into Wigan the week after - and hopefully a home semi-final after that.”