UP to four Warrington women could be on the Elland Road pitch today attempting to help Women's Super League champions St Helens retain the Challenge Cup in the televised final against Leeds Rhinos.

2021 treble winners Saints face Rhinos at the home of Leeds United at noon in a decider to be shown live on BBC2 and Warringtonians Jodie Cunningham, Tara Jones plus sisters Emily and Isabella Rudge are named in the 20-strong squad.

The showdown is being played as part of a triple-header showpiece, with the two men's semi-finals - Wigan v St Helens at 2.30pm and Huddersfield v Hull KR at 5pm - to follow on.

Last year’s women's final, when Saints won the competition for the first time, was in front of a restricted crowd at Leigh Sports Village.

Surveying Elland Road for the media day on Tuesday, Saints skipper Cunningham believes the football Premier Division ground will enhance the spectacle.

“Year on year the stadiums we get to play on in the women’s game are just rising,” she said.

“For me it is a real showcase of how far the women’s game has come.

“To play at Elland Road is just amazing – and looking at it now it looks like a massive pitch.

“That will be great for us and Leeds because we have both got talented athletes and speedsters in the team who will love this big, wide pitch.”

Cunningham will not need any additional motivation ahead of Saturday’s quest to retain the Challenge Cup.

The mere sight of the amber and blue of Leeds Rhinos should be enough to ensure they are up to the mark for the first big showpiece of the day.

Although treble-wining Saints vanquished the Rhinos in last year’s Super League Grand Final – painful memories of last minute semi-final defeats in 2019 have been something of a spur.

There is definitely a strong rivalry between the sides – and that points to a fantastic game in store in the backyard of the Rhinos, who defeated Warrington Wolves 40-0 in the quarter-finals before squeezing past York in the semi-finals at The Halliwell Jones Stadium last month.

Cunningham said: “We are creating our own little rivalry and history – which is brilliant. We love to hate them.

“They are fantastic individuals, people and rugby league players and we know that we are going to have to be at our best whenever we come up against them.

“We know we have to be at our best on Saturday if we have to have a chance of lifting that trophy.

“We laugh at training at how many times Dek (Hardman, coach) is going to bring up 2019 to keep us grounded because those games really hurt, losing in the way we did in both the semi-finals to Leeds both in the last minute of the game.

“The girls were devastated and we never wanted to feel like that again.

“That is what drove us a lot last year to perform like we did and put the hard work in like we did to lift the three trophies.

“This year again we don’t want Leeds to turn us over and don’t want to feel that way.

“It is really nice to lift trophies and now we have got a taste of it we don’t want it to stop.”