St Helens 40-0 York City Knights
The opening day of the Women’s Super League, saw Saint Helens Women host York City Knights, in front of a healthy crowd at Ruskin Sports Village.
The fixture was the first opportunity for supporters to see the newly formed St Helens team in action, and they certainly delivered in terms of performance.
It was St Helens who struck first, with England player, Faye Gaskin scoring within the first five minutes.
Gaskin was instrumental in the majority of St Helens plays, she moved the ball around really well, resulting in Saints exploiting the Knights out wide on a number of occasions.
Photographs by kind permission of Liam Platt (@liamplatt99)
Leah Burke scored the second of the Saints Tries, and just at the quarter game mark, Naomi Williams added a third, further compounding the visitors misery.
With Saint Helens dominating in the middle, and utilising the experience within the squad, they looked impressive in attack- with Pip Birchall instrumental going forward.
Burke proceeded to get her second try of the game, with the impressive Gaskin scoring twice more to secure her hat-trick, meaning that with Gaskin successfully kicking the conversions, the home side entered half-time with a 30-0 lead.
The second-half saw the visitors YCK on occasions test the Saints, with Paige Louise Stevens gaining yards with strong ball carries.
Saint Helens were resilient defensively and managed to dig deep, closing YCK down.
After a significant break in play, which saw Saint Helens Pip Birchall taken to hospital by ambulance, the game recommenced with Saints once again asserting their authority on the game.
Saint Helens scored again, with Williams scoring her second try of the game, before Leah Burke went in for her hat-trick.
With Gaskin converting her fourth of the game, the Saints strong game management, enabled them to maintain control for the majority of the game.
Sadly, the game was abandoned by the Match Official, after a second serious injury was sustained by YCK player Chloe James.
Photographs by kind permission of Liam Platt (@liamplatt99)
The game finished with a resounding win for Saint Helens, 40-0.
Saint Helens Head Coach, Mark Brennan said, “We were happy with our performance today. It was our first hit out, and at times, played some nice stuff and finished some nice tries.
“We know we have things we have to work on going forward. We need to be more ruthless in defence, but on the whole we are happy with where we are at.”
York City Knights Assistant Coach, Kay Rollinson said, “We were under no illusions that this game was going to be a test. At times I think we matched Saint Helens, but the experience of some of their players, was superior to ours.”
“We have some very talented, but inexperienced players in our squad this season. The advantage of this is that I think we will get stronger as they gain that experience. To our credit, we refused to give in, and we now are focused on improving for our next fixture against Castleford Tigers.”
It’s been confirmed that thankfully, both St Helens Pip Birchall and YCK Chloe James are recovering well from muscular injuries.