FEATHERSTONE ROVERS might have only been back in pre-season training for two weeks, but coach Marie Colley is already confident her side can put on a better show than the last time they were in Super League.
After finishing top of the Championship in 2023, Rovers earned their spot in an expanded Super League competition, but struggled to make the step up and were relegated the following September having failed to win a game.
They bounced straight back though and earned a second promotion in three years by beating London Broncos 20-10 in September’s Championship Grand Final.
While men’s team are in limbo due to the Featherstone club applying to enter administration, the women’s side – run by the community foundation – are gearing up for the new campaign.
“The girls have wanted to be back in training for weeks, but we were telling them their bodies needed a rest because this season is going to be tough,” Colley told League Express.
“They are super-excited to get going and you can tell that from the shape that they’ve come back in.
“They’ve all had their own personal programmes to be working on in the off-season. They’ve really got stuck into the first couple of sessions and we’ve been able to hit the ground running.
“It’s quite easy to get distracted and to not find the motivation when you’re left to follow your own programmes in your own time, but the girls have really had a mindset shift this time, and it’s been really pleasing to see.
“It’s going to be a completely different Featherstone Rovers to when we were last in Super League.
“We learnt some big lessons from that season and not winning a game was really tough. It made us as a group question ourselves, question what was right and what was wrong.
“The coaching staff questioned if we were right to take the group forward and we sat in our meetings and really scrutinised what needed to change and how we were going to do that.
“Because of all that, we are all in a much better place and we’re all working very hard behind the scenes, so Super League will see a very different club this time round.”