Adam Cuthbertson: New-look Leeds Rhinos women are raring to spring into Super League action

We kick off against Wakefield Trinity at Weetwood on Sunday – 1pm kick-off – so if you’re in the area please come along and I am sure you’ll be impressed.

It’s our first game since we lost to Wigan in the Grand Final last October. That was a disappointing end to what was a brilliant first season overall.

We have got a lot of young talent who have come into the squad this year and there’s a really good feeling around the camp.

Rhiannion Marshall has gone to Castleford, which is a good signing for them, a couple of others have moved on and we’ve got Lois Forsell and Danika Priim out at the moment with acl injuries so it’s a bit of a new-look side we will be fielding this week and there is a lot of hunger there. There always is with this team, I like to think I coach them that way.

It has been a very self-focused pre-season where we’ve just been concentrating on pushing ourselves to be the best we can be.

We’ve been working on skills, defence and fitness and it has been an interesting pre-season and a very challenging one.

The girls have been looking a bit ahead the last two weeks to this game on Sunday because they are so keen to get out there and actually put everything we’ve done in pre-season into practice in a competition match.

There’s some new names to watch out for in the team this year, including a couple who have come over from rugby union who I think could make a real impact.

Lucy Hewitt is one of those. She will fill in for our captain Courtney Hill who is unavailable this weekend so she has big boots to fill, but I’m looking forward to seeing what she can do.

The other one who has come from the 15-a-side game is Evie Jackson who was playing union over at Harrogate.

We picked her up through our physio Alex Morrell; she’s his partner. She is still very raw, but unbelievably fit and determined. She is a workhorse and she will feature this weekend as well.

What is exciting me most is seeing how the young ones in the squad progress. A lot of them have stepped up from the academy and didn’t have a pre-season last year. They came in midway through the year when we were going through the Challenge Cup and proved they can handle it.

Elle Frain will play this weekend as will Ellie Oldroyd and Chloe Kerrigan.

Chloe has been absolutely brilliant in pre-season and she is definitely someone to watch.

Tasha Gaines is a half-back who is coming in to do a job at number nine this year. She spent the whole of last season on the sidelines due to a really bad elbow injury so she is raring to go and it is really exciting to see her have a really strong pre-season.

Lois is our No 9, but Tasha has got an opportunity to show what she can do and I am looking forward to seeing how she goes.

Sophie Nuttall and Frankie Townend are another two who weren’t in our pre-season squad last year so we have got a number of players who are stepping up and I am excited by how much talent we have to choose from.

I think it is going to be an even closer Women’s Super League this year. St Helens and Wigan will be strong again and I reckon Castleford are going to be right up there.

They had a good, young squad last year – including the Woman of Steel – and they’ve recruited well.

We surprised a lot of people last season by doing so well in our inaugural year, but I think with the changes we’ve made and the number of young players coming through we might fly under the radar a bit. We are happy with that.

We’ll give it our best and see what happens, but I am confident we won’t be too far off when it comes to the business end of the season.