Written off once again, York Valkyrie defied the odds to claim a third Women’s Super League crown with a remarkable victory over Wigan Warriors. 

ALL sports fans enjoy a good underdog story, a team battling adversity to beat the odds and prove the doubters wrong.

But how many times can one team be the subject of such stories before history says you can no longer considered the underdogs? 

York Valkyrie could be about to find out again after springing a big surprise to become the first side to claim three Women’s Super League crowns.

The first, in 2023, saw them go into the final as favourites after retaining the League Leaders’ Shield, and they lived up to that with a 16-6 win over Leeds Rhinos. But by the time they qualified for the 2024 Grand Final after finishing third in the table, very few gave them a chance against the might of St Helens, who’d lost just one game all season.

Injuries and unavailability had blighted York all season, and it was widely expected that the final would prove one game too much for the Valkyrie. But tries from Lacey Owen, Eboni Partington and Kelsey Gentles secured an 18-8 win.

So perhaps people shouldn’t have been so quick to write them off again this year, after an impressive four-match winning run at the end of the season, followed by a 12-0 semi-final victory over Leeds Rhinos, saw them set up a final against the all-conquering Wigan Warriors side on course for a second straight treble.

In the last league game of the regular season, York beat Wigan 26-12 to qualify for the semi-final, but surely that was just an off-day for Denis Betts’ Warriors. Surely they would bounce back from that defeat and easily reclaim their title. Surely that was all written in the script. Well, if it was, no one told York, who put in one of the best defensive performances ever seen in the women’s game to hold onto their 8-6 half-time lead and rip the trophy from Wigan’s grasp.

And no one was happier when the final hooter sounded than try-scorer and captain Sinead Peach, who was watching on at the 2024 showpiece whilst heavily pregnant with her son.

“There were some points in the year where we didn’t believe in ourselves and didn’t believe we could do it,” admitted Peach.

“But we just kept working hard, and we got a run of results together and started getting a bit more self-belief, and then when we beat Wigan in the league it gave us so much confidence going into the final.

“We went into the game believing in ourselves and showed some real grit and determination that we could do it and prove everyone wrong.

“Everyone was fighting for each other and putting in those one percenters for the teammate next to them, which you could see when we were defending so many back-to-back sets.

“Two years ago it was the dream to lift that trophy again with my little boy in the stand.

“Coming back into the game after a pregnancy is hard; your body has to start again from scratch, and at times last year I maybe underestimated that and just went through through the motions.

“There were times this year when Leon (Pryce – coach) dropped me, or had me on the bench, and I missed some games because of the ban I got at the end of last season. I had to prove myself all over again, but that has made me a better player throughout the season.

“I’m a strong believer that everything happens for a reason, so while there have been challenges along the way, it’s all paid off with lifting the trophy and becoming champions again.”

Team-mate Lisa Parker agrees and knows that going into games like this with little expected of them actually brings out the best in them.

“I feel like we’re always the underdogs, but I like that because then it means that we’ve not got any expectations on us, and we can just go out there and play for each other without too much pressure on us,” said Parker, who also felt York went into the final with a real point to prove after the win against Wigan two weeks earlier.

“I’m not sure our team gets a lot of credit we deserve. When we beat Wigan in the league game, a lot of the talk was about Wigan and how they didn’t have a good game, or that it was an off day for them. Nothing was really said about us, but we went into that game knowing we had to win the semi-finals and worked hard to do that.

“That definitely gave us more motivation for the final to prove people wrong and show them that we could do it again.

“We knew that Wigan tended to beat teams in the opening 20 minutes, so if we could hold them off in that time, we would be in the game. That’s what we did and we came away with the win, and the trophy.”

The story of York’s season is an inspiring one.

After an off-season that saw highly successful coach Lindsay Anfield move on to be replaced by former Super League winner and international star Pryce, things got off to a slow start.

This was a squad having to get used to new players, a new coach and a new way of doing things – it was always going to take time to come together, and that was evident in the early stages of the season.

When the league split midway through the year, York had failed to beat any of the three teams above them and then lost their first two Super Four fixtures to Leeds (38-16) and Wigan (44-0). But then something changed: players, including Tara Jane Stanley after almost two years out with a knee injury, were back fit and in form, and York finally found their rhythm, beating Leeds and Saints twice, before meeting League Leaders’ Shield winners Wigan in that final round fixture.

It’s not always easy to pinpoint at what moment in a season fortunes change for a club, but in this instance Pryce knows exactly what triggered the turnaround.

“Going into the Super Fours I knew we’d start to show an improvement,” said Pryce.

“We were getting some players back, and things were starting to click a bit more, but, if I’m honest, I could not have imagined that we’d have the run we did and win the Grand Final.

“I just hadn’t seen enough signs of us defending consistently well enough. To win big games you’ve got to keep opposition teams to one or two tries, and we’d not been doing that.

“We always practice ruck defence, goal line defence and defensive systems, and we’ve always drilled it into the girls how important all that is, but the intensity of that has got to come from them.

“After that heavy defeat to Wigan, we had some tough conversations as a group and asked each other ‘Do you want to be here and do what we’re asking you to do?’ because ultimately we all need to buy in to what we’re doing. If there are one or two people that don’t, then you’re always going to lose.

“But after that heart-to-heart, we knew we had a full buy-in, and that really switched the momentum. We saw a change in attitude from a group, which was really evident in those final three games in particular.”

While creating a memorable end to the season for both York and the game, Parker was left with more than one reason to celebrate when a very public, on-field proposal from partner and Sheffield Eagles Women’s joint head coach Louis Townsend followed.

And while she was quick to say yes, the broken hand she suffered in the league win over Wigan had a big say in how smoothly that special moment went.

“We’d spoken about it before, and I’d said that if he ever did propose I didn’t want him to do it in front of anyone,” admitted Parker, who underwent surgery on the injury the day after the final.

“I didn’t want him to do it in a restaurant or anything like that because I’m quite a shy person and get quite embarrassed. But then he went and did it in front of everyone on Sky Sports, so it was definitely memorable.

“But I had absolutely no clue what was happening, and I ended up feeling really bad because our physio, Chloe, was trying to get me to take the strapping off my hand, but I kept saying no because it really hurt.

“She told me it needed to come off for the photos, and I said I didn’t care about the photos. I felt like I was being really rude and snapping at her, but then it all made sense when I saw Louis.

“There were so many emotions flying around; I didn’t know what I was more excited about – getting engaged or winning a Grand Final that no one expected us to win.

“So yes, it was a very special day.”

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 526 (November 2026)