After a trophy-laden stint at the helm of York Valkyrie, Lindsay Anfield has swapped the Minster City for the south of France to pass on her knowledge to the Catalans Dragons women’s team, Les Déesses.

WHEN the news broke of Lindsay Anfield’s departure from York Valkyrie, thoughts quickly turned to the next challenge awaiting one of the most successful coaches in the women’s game.

A switch to a Women’s Super League rival? A step into youth coaching? Perhaps even a hiatus from the sport altogether after five hard-fought and trophy-laden seasons at York?

What few, if any at all, had predicted was the reality: a move to Catalans Dragons, where although they are part of the Dragons club, the women’s team are known as Les Déesses (Godesses).

“The initial plan was to have a little bit of a break,” Anfield told Rugby League World. “I’d been speaking to a few other clubs about potentially doing something similar to what we did at York.

“But times have changed in five years and it costs a lot more than people would think to set up a women’s team now and full credit to the clubs that are investing in the women’s game.

“I’ve known the staff at Catalans for a long time,” continued Anfield, who led training camps in the south of France with former clubs Castleford Tigers and York and signed four players from them during her time with the latter.

“After leaving York, I started talking to Catalans around November time and having discussions about working with them.

“As a club, Catalans really see a future for the women’s team and want to invest in it, which is really exciting to be a part of, so this is the perfect gig for me at the moment.”

Anfield led her first coaching session in Perpignan at the start of December, with plans to travel across the Channel every three weeks in combination with video analysis work from her native West Yorkshire.

“You’d be surprised by how much you can fit into a weekend, whether that’s coaching, doing video analysis, speaking to players one-on-one or a gameday,” explained the former England international.

“The whole experience so far has been great. I love the culture over there and being able to jet off for the weekend and get stuck into it. In terms of my work-life balance, it’s absolutely perfect.”

Across five years at York, Anfield transformed the Valkyrie’s fortunes, turning the club into one of the leading forces in the Women’s Super League.

Back-to-back League Leaders’ Shields were captured in 2022 and 2023, while successive Grand Final titles crowned the 2023 and 2024 campaigns.

No other team in the competition’s history has ever won either trophy in consecutive years.

2025 proved to be the toughest season of Anfield’s tenure, losing key playmakers Tara Jane Stanley and Liv Gale to long-term injuries while influential forwards Megan Pakulis, Lacey Owen and Kelsey Gentles departed the club.

As Wigan Warriors emerged as the new dominant force in the women’s game by completing the domestic treble, York failed to reach a major final in a calendar year for the first time since Anfield’s arrival.

“It just felt like the right time to move on,” she reflected. “I’ve seen so many of those girls grow from being teenagers taking school exams and driving lessons to getting partners and settling down with kids. I’ll stay friends with so many of them forever.

“But from a rugby point of view, they needed a fresh voice and a new direction. Hopefully with the pathways that we built from the Under-19s into the first team, it should be a successful club for many years to come.

“The (Grand) Finals were obviously great moments but I think I’ll miss coming into training and having that energy around the whole group that we built, I think that’ll be the biggest thing I’ll miss.

“Driving up the A64 (to York) and seeing the same people, it’s great as you make those bonds and friendships, but to keep you fresh, you do have to push yourself out of your comfort zone and I’ve definitely done that with Catalans now.

“It’s brought me to life a little bit, which I’m thoroughly enjoying.”

That said, there has been the occasional language barrier mishap.

“I learnt very quickly that if you don’t put the accent on the word ‘ruck’, it turns into ‘backpack’ in French!” laughs Anfield.

“You pick up the keywords that you need, especially when you’re refereeing or doing drills, and Google Translate has been very handy.

“There’s quite a few girls that speak really good English, who are translating, plus the whole squad have been so welcoming, which has been really helpful.”

The appointment of Anfield has not been the only high-profile addition made by Les Déesses.

They captured the headlines when making three overseas signings from the NRLW, with Tyra Wetere and Felila Kia signed from New Zealand Warriors while Jayde Herdegen arrived from Sydney Roosters, last season’s beaten Grand Finalists.

While there may be a sizeable gap in quality between the world-leading NRLW and the domestic French competition, the chance for the Australasian trio to continue playing over their natural off-season in combination with a trip across Europe was a major draw.

“I really wanted to make the most of my off-season from the Roosters, so when Catalans reached out to myself and a few others, I wanted to take the chance,” explained Herdegen.

“This is my first time ever overseas, I only just got a passport a few months ago. Part of me was thinking about saying no because I hate flying, it’s my biggest fear, but I’m so glad I came.

“The standard of the competition here is higher than I expected. It’s a really tough style of play, similar to the Queensland Cup back home. Even at training, the coach will tell us that we’re going into a contact session and there’s no holding back.

“It’s been really enjoyable getting to know the girls over here and sharing as much as we know too from our experiences.

“Myself and Tyra have done some kicking drills with Christina, the other half-back, plus the squad here is quite young, so any knowledge we can pass on, can hopefully help the team out.”

As a half-back, Herdegen is accustomed to calling the plays and guiding her team-mates around the field, a task made somewhat more difficult at Catalans while still learning to speak French.

“I’ve learned the basics now, but for the first couple of weeks, I had to write ‘gauche’ (left) and ‘droit’ (right) on my hands!” admits the 21-year-old.

“Living with Tyra, it’s nice to come home at the end of the day and not have to try to speak French!

“We’re both doing ok so far, we’ve learned the basics. We can say hello, goodbye and we’ve learnt pretty much all of the swear words!”

On the additions from down under, Anfield enthused: “Being able to sign players from Australia and New Zealand is something that Catalans are going to be able to do every year because the French season runs from October to April and the NRLW pre-season starts in May.

“That’s an amazing opportunity for Catalans as a club and also for the NRL girls to get the experience of playing and living in Europe.

“The clubs that we’ve spoken to are really happy that girls are coming over here to play and train, keeping themselves fit in their off-season.

“And it’s just a really good life experience for them, having the opportunity to travel Europe, that must be really appealing for a lot of them.

“There’s already interest from players to come over next year and the year after.”

The increased backing by the Catalans hierarchy into the women’s team has not been merely limited to the coaching and playing personnel.

For the first time in their history, Les Déesses will compete in this year’s Women’s Challenge Cup, with all of their fixtures to be played on away soil.

During January’s draw, Catalans were pitted into Group ‘A’, with matches against record eight-time Cup winners St Helens (four of them were under the previous guise of Thatto Heath Crusaders) and last season’s fifth-placing WSL side Huddersfield Giants.

“The entry into the Challenge Cup is going to be costly with the travel, so for the club to support that is brilliant,” Anfield said.

“The end of our domestic season flows straight into the Challenge Cup so hopefully by that stage, the NRL girls will have bedded in and we’ll be in a good place as the other teams are starting their season.

“We’re just really excited to be in the competition. We wanted two tough games to see where we are as a group, so it’s a great draw for us.

“We’ll have the underdog tag in both games as a team making our debut, which is a nice position to be in.

“Over in France, we’ve had games that we’ve won pretty convincingly, so to see how that translates when we go into games against the top teams in Women’s Super League will be really interesting.

“It’s just amazing that Catalans as a club really sees a future in the women’s game and want to be part of it. Hopefully this is just the first step of what Catalans are wanting to do over the years.”

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 517 (February 2026)