YORK coach Leon Pryce reckons Valkyrie’s recent victory over Wigan, while eye-catching, will count for nothing when the two sides meet again in Sunday’s Grand Final at the Brick Community Stadium.
York ran out 26-12 winners at the LNER Community Stadium when the sides met in the final round of regular-season fixtures to clinch third place and subject Wigan to their only defeat the year so far.
That was backed up with a 12-0 play-off success over Leeds at AMT Headingley – their fourth victory in five games – to seal Sunday’s showpiece appearance and complete something of a comeback after a slow start to the campaign.
When the season split after the first seven fixtures, York had failed to beat any of their fellow top-four teams and were two points behind third-placed St Helens.
While many onlookers felt the second half of York’s schedule could follow a similar path as the rebuild continued under Pryce, the coach himself was confident his side would come good.
“I knew we’d slowly improve as the season went on,” said the boss, who was clearly delighted to see everything come together at the back end of the season.
“We had a new coach, new staff, new players and new positions and the girls had to learn how I wanted to play. They had to learn our standards as a coaching staff and I needed to learn about the girls and figure out what makes them tick. All that takes time.
“We’ve also been missing key personnel for long periods of this season but it came together right at the end. We got players back and others were coming into really good form at back end of season.
“I’d have bitten your hand off if you’d offered me a Grand Final appearance at the start.
“But we go into it knowing Wigan are going to be hurting, their pride is going to be hurt.
“They’ll have had two weeks to prepare for this game, so even though we beat them, it’s going to be a different Wigan who turn up for the final and we understand that.”