THREE Warrington women will be looking to help their Saints side make history on Saturday when they run out to play Leeds Rhinos in the first ever Women’s Challenge Cup Final to be staged at Wembley.

Skipper Jodie Cunningham, who plays after suffering a broken nose in the semi final, is expected to be joined in the starting line-up by by her long-time school pal Emily Rudge and current Rugby Football League match official Tara Jones.

All three featured heavily in their semi-final success against York Valkyrie at Warrington's Halliwell Jones Stadium, with ex-Cardinal Newman High School pair Cunningham and Rudge due to feature in the back row and one-time Crosfields junior Jones at hooker.

Cunningham was inspirational at loose-forward that day on her comeback from knee surgery, Rudge was player of the match in the second-row, while former Jones was similarly impressive from dummy-half and got among the try scorers.

Now everything goes up another level for the Warringtonians, their teammates and the women's game in general.

Cunningham wants the team to take the history-making occasion up a notch by becoming the first women's team to walk up those illustrious steps to collect the trophy.

Fittingly the game kicks off at high noon for two of the biggest rivals in women’s rugby league in a match that will be played before the men’s final between Leigh Leopards and Hull KR.

Cunningham knows that there will be plenty of eyeballs on this fixture – and she is determined to showcase the sport at the national stadium.

Saturday will show how far the women’s game has come since Cunningham played in the final 10 years ago for Thatto Heath in the match at Batley’s Mount Pleasant.

She said: “It is absolutely unreal to be on full parity with the men – both Challenge Cup Finals, same day, same venue and a venue like Wembley.

“It’s just unreal. It’s a massive occasion for us, particularly for the chance to make history irrelevant of what the result is.

“Hopefully we’ll give absolutely everything to come out on the right side of that result, but regardless of that – the occasion and being part of history of being the first women’s rugby league teams to walk out at Wembley is massive, so we’re not going to take that lightly.

“We’re going to make sure we put a good performance on and showcase the best of what women’s rugby league has to offer.”

Cunningham visited Wembley last week as part of the game’s promotional activities.

And all of a sudden it brought it home to her the magnitude of playing at England’s iconic national stadium.

“I think when I went down to view Wembley it became real, it was always this thing in the future that you couldn’t get too excited about because we haven’t got there yet," she said.

“Whereas going down as part of the media day, that was the first chance to see that we’re actually going to be here.

“It was also the first time I really looked at the steps and where you’d go up to collect trophies and medals.

“And wow, that’s a possibility as well and was thinking, ‘Well, we’ve got there now that is the first job done’.

“Now the job and 100 per cent task for us is making sure that we perform and hopefully win it too.”

The Warrington trio have already helped Saints win the cup two years in a row and are now going for the hat-trick, coached by former England, Saints, Wigan, Salford, Catalans, Warrington and Widnes scrum-half Matty Smith.

She said: “We’ll have to be our best if we want to lift the trophy and Leeds are going to do everything they can to stop that happening.

“You know three in a row is going to be pretty special if we get the opportunity to do that – Leeds are definitely not going to want that to happen.

“No matter what, I think it’ll be a great spectacle of women’s rugby league and I just think I can’t even let myself think of the heartbreak of walking off that field a loser.

“I’m just gonna make sure I put everything in that I can this week to prepare myself and I know the rest of the girls are doing the same and then we can’t ask for any more, we’ll just give it everything on the day."