YORK VALKYRIE coach Leon Pryce looked at the season so far and while seeing plusses, accepted: “We’ve got a lot further to go.”
After crashing out of the Challenge Cup via a 52-0 defeat by eventual competition winners Wigan in the semi-finals, York started the league season with a 42-0 victory over Huddersfield before a narrow, and late, 18-14 loss to St Helens.
That result last time out may have been a setback, but Pryce was still able to take a lot of positives, and believes his side will get better by learning from it.
“I was really disappointed for the girls, but Saints showed why they are one of the champion teams in this competition by just pipping us right at the end,” he said.
“The effort, commitment and togetherness was outstanding and there were massive efforts from a lot of the players. We really fronted up and put in a performance that every girl should be proud of.
“Technically we will look at improving in some areas, but it’s not that side of things that bothers me so much, it’s the want and desire to work for each other and have each other’s backs, and we have that.
“It’s an indication of how far we’ve come in a short space of time, but we still have a lot further to go.
“We’ve still got Savannah (Andrade) and Rhiannion (Marshall) to come back and Tara (Stanley) is around three weeks away from being ready to return, so we have got so much potential moving forward. That really excites me and we will only get better.”
The Challenge Cup final gave York a weekend off ahead of Saturday’s trip to AMT Headingley to face Leeds.
“We have a lot of sore bodies and we’re quite low on numbers, so we probably needed the weekend off,” said Pryce.
“It was good the let the girls rest up before getting back into it ahead of Leeds.”