LINDSAY ANFIELD has called for York City Knights Ladies to prove they are no “one-win wonder” as they seek to back up the shock victory over St Helens.

York condemned last year’s treble winners St Helens to their first defeat since 2019 after a 13-6 upset win at the LNER Community Stadium almost a fortnight ago.

The Knights will be aiming to continue their winning start to the Betfred Women’s Super League season when they host Leeds Rhinos at the Community Stadium on Sunday (12pm).

That will be no easy task though with Leeds among the run-away top three in the women’s game, alongside York and Saints, and having narrowly beaten the Knights 28-26 in April’s Betfred Challenge Cup semi-final.

“The St Helens win was massive for us,” reflected director of rugby Anfield. “Our squad was pretty depleted and we had six players who would have been in the starting 17 not available.

“To get that result without those players especially was a magnificent effort from the girls.

“But it’s all about this weekend now for us and if we can put on a good performance against Leeds then we can really show we’re not just a one-win wonder.

“Last week in training, the girls were really lacking energy and I think that they probably had a bit of a mental hangover from the Saints game.

“I’m hoping that in training this week we’re switched back on and we can have a really good bash against Leeds.”

The Rhinos’ cup triumph over York was largely built on the kicking of Leeds half-backs Georgia Roche and Courtney Winfield-Hill, the 2018 and 2019 Woman of Steel award winners respectively.

“They’re the best halves in the league and they’ll probably be the England half-backs too,” hailed Anfield.

“Their dominance in terms of managing the game and bossing their team around works really well for them and their kicking games are excellent.”

Reflecting further on their semi-final exit at the hands of Leeds, Anfield continued: “We learnt loads from it. In the reflection process we had after that, we got all the girls involved in it.

“They started to understand where they were going wrong on the field and how we were doing things in training but not translating that onto the field.

“We’ve worked on what they do under fatigue and how to put pressure on opponents as well as our strengths and the areas we’re not as strong at.

“Using our pack and backs to dominate Saints really showed them what we’ve been asking them to do for the past few months. Hopefully the penny dropped against Saints and we can do the same against Leeds.”

While this weekend marks only round three of the league season, Anfield did not hide the importance of Sunday’s clash with fellow title challengers Leeds.

She said: “Every game against Saints and Leeds is massive. We don’t get many of them a year so you’ve just got to embrace every opportunity to play them.

“As soon as we started pre-season, we were aiming for these games. They’re incredibly important to us.”

The Sportsman have confirmed that they will livestream York City Knights Ladies’ clash with Leeds Rhinos, with coverage beginning from 11.45am.