Leeds Rhinos' England star Bella Sykes reflects on spell at Cronulla Sharks ahead of Wigan Warriors test

Sykes spent most of this year with Cronulla Sharks’ New South Wales Women’s Premiership team, who play one level below the elite NRL Women’s (NRLW) competition. Now back at Leeds, her aim is to help Rhinos reach - and win - the Betfred Women’s Super League Grand Final.

“I got the chance to play against girls who’ve played at the highest level and the games are really fast and competitive, which is what I wanted,” Sykes, 21, said of her time in Australia. “It has put me in good stead coming back to Leeds and hopefully I am all right physically going into some of these hard games.”

Leeds lost 18-14 at York Valkyrie last Sunday in Sykes’ comeback match and she admits they need to improve for back-to-back fixtures against Wigan Warriors, starting at Edge Hall Road tomorrow (Saturday, 2pm). “There’s definitely some areas I need to improve and some positives to take away from it as well,” she said of her own performance.

“It was a tough game and we need to reflect on it and put some things right for [this] week. We put ourselves under the pump early and were chasing the game from then on. We had the belief we could come back into the game, which we did, but we just left it too late in the second half.”

Wigan - who visit AMT Headingley next Saturday - are unbeaten this year, but Sykes insisted: “I think if there’s anyone in the comp who are going to do a job against them it’s probably Leeds. We are a fit side, with a fit pack and mobile middles.

“We just need to prepare well and show Wigan what we are about. The structure of the league in the second half of the year allows us to find a bit of consistency and what’s good is playing hard games and knowing you’ve got another tough one the week after. There’s no leeway to drop off. We know we weren’t at our best [last week] and we have to find some form against Wigan.”

Sykes’ return was an unexpected boost for Rhinos and she admitted: “It probably wasn’t always in the plan. Perhaps naively I thought at Cronulla we’d make the finals and that would take me to the end of September, around World Cup selection time.

“Unfortunately, the way the season went, it doesn’t look like we’re going to make the finals so I had to make a call in terms of where I was going to finish the year playing. I am glad I have made the decision and hopefully I can get some good minutes now going into some important games.”

Sykes, who initially joined Leeds from Huddersfield Giants three years ago, still has ambitions to play at the highest level in Australia. She vowed: “The NRLW is something I have had my eyes on for a long time and something I definitely want to keep working towards. I loved my time out in Australia, but my focus at the minute is doing my job for Leeds and finishing the year strong. Then hopefully I put myself in a position for World Cup selection and then next year I’ll take some time to reflect on what I want to do next.”