Sheffield Eagles Women - 2022 in their own words

14/12/2022

Sheffield Eagles Women enjoyed a magnificent debut campaign in 2022, topping the League 1 table before claiming promotion against Illingworth at Odsal in the Grand Final.

Supporter-led podcast ‘Eagles Chat’ - anchored by Dean Mitchell and Mark Webster - invited members of the squad on to the show last night.

Capucine Auger, Beth Arnold and Molly Haglington represented the team and were very happy to discuss the journey from first training session to that afternoon in Bradford.

“I remember the first training session we had in Hillsborough,” Capucine reflected.

“It was a great turnout, 17 to 20 of us were there - some who had never played rugby, some who only had experience in Union.

“There was a lot of things we didn’t expect to catch on to so fast but we were lucky enough to have girls with Union skill who stayed with us and were the glue that held us together.

“They were teaching us the basic skill of rugby which is how to pass properly first of all and how to move about on the pitch. It was a matter of learning the few rules of League and we discovered we had something going on.

“I was never expecting to win the league but we didn’t know the level of the other teams.”

Beth was one of those Union players that made the transition to League and had the same target as Capucine - just to go out and enjoy wearing the Eagles jersey.

“I didn’t expect anything to start with, we just wanted to have some fun!”

“We were all shocked coming away from the first game of the season at Wigan as we were surprised how successful we were and how much we could play rugby.

“The next game was against Swinton and we got beat. That knocked us a bit and at that point, we weren’t expecting to win the league.

“We put the training in and it helped that we were a close group and we gelled really well.”

Moving on to next year and the step-up to the Championship, the squad have got their feet firmly on the ground despite the confidence gained from their debut year.

“We will aim for mid-table,” said Molly.

“If we train hard, work hard, put our minds and bodies to it and up the ante - we’ll definitely reach that goal.

“We’ll need to gel like we did last season and look to approach things how we have done.”

Season Memberships are now available and you can watch all four Eagles teams, in their respective home league matches, with one!

As #OneClub, the Women - alongside the Men, LDRL and Wheelchair - brought renewed life and inspiration to the Eagles upon their return to the Steel City.

Be a part of it - buy your Membership, free for Juniors (U16s), here!

By Dan Fowler