Leeds Rhinos v Castleford Tigers: Underdogs tag suits us fine, admits Courtney Hill

Captain Courtney Hill is happy for Leeds Rhinos to go into Saturday’s Coral Women’s Challenge Cup final against Castleford Tigers as underdogs.
Leeds Rhinos' 
Courtney Hill.Leeds Rhinos' 
Courtney Hill.
Leeds Rhinos' Courtney Hill.

Rhinos are the holders, having beaten Tigers in last year’s decider, but lost 27-0 to Castleford earlier in the season and are on the back of a 30-16 Super League defeat by St Helens four days ago.

Unbeaten in 2019, Castleford thrashed Wakefield Trinity 100-0 in their Cup semi-final and scrum-half Hill admitted: “There’s no doubt they will be favourites.”

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She said: “So they should be, they are top of the league for a reason and they put some points on us in our first league game.

“They can have the favourites tag because we know that’s no guarantee. We are happy to be underdogs.

“We are stoked to be there and just because we are underdogs it doesn’t mean we aren’t going to bring some fight.”

Leeds were below their best in last Sunday’s home defeat, but Hill – an Australian former top cricketer who kicked two goals in last year’s final – reckons lessons will be learned before the big game at University of Bolton Stadium.

“St Helens did well,” she reflected.

“We probably let them up the pitch a bit too easy.

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“I know some of the girls hadn’t played at Headingley before so whether nerves played a part in that I don’t know, but we gave them easy metres at times out of their own end.”

She added: “Momentum is a wonderful thing in the game of rugby, we kind of gave that to them at times and off the back of that they took advantage.

“There’s lessons to be learned for sure. But I think we can pin-point it to attitude, it wasn’t a technical error and attitude is an easy thing to fix pretty quickly.

“Sometimes you learn more from defeats and no doubt the occasion is going to bring the best out of the girls this week.”