Sunday’s women’s Super League Grand Final will be the Saints’ scrum-half last game – three years after being told she would never play again

Faye Gaskin pulls the strings for St Helens. In a season that will end on Sunday with Saints facing York Valkyrie in the Women’s Super League Grand Final, she has been the magic in the middle, her playmaking skills at scrum-half earning a nomination as Woman of Steel in Tuesday’s Rugby League Awards.

It’s an amazing achievement, especially given the messy fractured kneecap she was told had ended her career three years ago, and which still causes her “pain which shoots up by knee every time I kick the ball”. But Sunday will be both Gaskin’s first Grand Final and her last game. At 32, her priority is a family of her own.