Women’s Super League Grand Final: Wigan Warriors & St Helens battle for glory

St Helens were well beaten 42-6 in June’s Women’s Challenge Cup final at Wembley and are winless against Wigan so far this season.

Saints drew 22-22 at Wigan on 29 June in their first meeting after that Wembley defeat while they lost 24-20 at home in September at the tail end of the regular season.

Despite this, joint head coach Craig Richards said his side have taken a lot from their experience at Wembley, which came off the back of winning the Women’s Challenge Cup four times in succession.

“For us there’s a lot of strengths to be taken away from Wembley – the fact we got there [to the final] five times in a row shows our pedigree, how we’re always there or thereabouts for silverware,” he told BBC Radio Merseyside.

“On the back of that we learned a few lessons which led to a draw and there’s not a lot between the sides. We can both score tries from anywhere on the field.

“We’ve got exciting halves and exciting edges and there really isn’t much between the sides.

“For me it’s about that focus. Focusing for 80 minutes is key because what we’ve done in the past is switched off.”

The club’s men’s team showed they lived up to the moniker of “never write off the Saints” when they snatched victory after the hooter of their Super League play-off eliminator at Leeds last weekend, and Richards said his side have the ability to go to the very end, too.

“We know one thing Wigan don’t do is go away – they don’t falter so it’s going to be an 80-minute performance needed to get the job done,” he added.

“One of the advantages of St Helens, our culture is that we are very highly skilled and if you have to pull out that type of play, we’ve got the skill level to do it.

“Those types of things happen once a decade and we definitely don’t want to take it that deep into the game even though I’m sure the game will go deep into the last five or 10 minutes.”