BARROW Raiders Ladies head coach Amanda Wilkinson expects York Valkyrie to hit them with everything they’ve got tomorrow.

York are the visitors when Raiders play their first home game in the Women’s Super League at the Northern Competitions Stadium (kick-off 2pm).

Valkyrie are the current Super League Champions and pose another tough test for the Raiders, who opened their league campaign with an 18-6 defeat away to Wigan Warriors Women last Friday.

Wilkinson said: “They had a tough encounter against St Hellens, and I think they will be coming here to look to see how many points they can put on us.

“The are putting out a full-strength side and they will be looking to come here and prove a point.

“We know we need to be at our best, especially defensively, because York are a very physical side.

“You can’t give them anything, because they are strong, they are physical and they are fit, and they know how to play.

“It’s probably a different type of test (from Wigan) and a different type of toughness.

“They are an established team, full of internationals and experienced players.

““They have got players in there that are smart. Tara Stanley just plays at ease.”

Looking back at the game against Wigan, Wilkinson said there was stuff to work on but also positives to take.

She added: “I really believe that in the first half against Wigan we had opportunities to win the game.

“Those missed opportunities have given the girls lots of confidence, and we played some really good stuff.

“We talk about performance all of the time, and for me I was happy with the performance just disappointed with the result.

“There’s a lot of work to be done on initial contact and approach to contact, so that’s what we were working on in the early part of this week just to tighten up on that.

“We have a performance analysis guy that has done a lot of work with the players reviewing the Wigan game, but we tend not to hang on to too many negatives.

“At the end of the day, stuff that didn’t work, didn’t work, so it’s about fixing up the stuff that we can.”

Wilkinson faces a bit of anxious having named a 21-woman squad for the clash with York.

And she admits there may have to be one or two late decisions.

She said: “There were some very sore bodies after Wigan. We have picked up some injuries as well, so we are a little short of confirmation of players being available for Saturday.

“But we are looking forward to the game and we are looking to go out there and put in another good performance.

“We don’t just want to go into games and take part. We want to start putting points on the board but, we have to be realistic and take each game as it comes, because each game is different.

“There are some games that we probably know are maybe out of our reach, but we have just go to and make sure we get the best performance that we can.”