Victorious St Helens skipper Jodie Cunningham says the Women’s Challenge Cup final win over York is just reward for all the hard work everyone at the club has put in during the pandemic.
With the global health crisis putting paid to the entire 2020 women’s season, Saints players were so eager for success in 2021 that they put in hours of solo training while in lockdown as well as getting together as a group whenever the guidelines allowed.
That paid off with a 34-6 victory over York at Leigh Sports Village.
“It feels so good to finally win a trophy with this club,” said Cunningham, who has missed out at the semi-final stages of the Challenge Cup and play-offs several times.
“We’ve been good enough to do it for a long time, but just fell a little bit short.
“But we used Covid, and the break we had because of it, to our advantage and made sure that we worked really hard and came back fitter, stronger and more skilful than ever.
“The nerves over the game being live on BBC probably did play a part and we made errors we wouldn’t usually make, but some of the tries we scored were outstanding and we dug in really well on our line defensively.
“It just means so much to win and I am so proud of everyone.”
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