Rowe: Plenty to take on board
- Wigan Warriors Women’s Isabel Rowe reflects after her first two senior appearances for the Club.
- Rowe: “Being around the girls they’ve really helped me fit in and I feel like I’m ready now to play at this higher level.”
- Watch the full match on Wigan TV HERE and find all the Women’s fixtures HERE.
Wigan Warriors Women’s Isabel Rowe discusses the step up to the first team set-up following her first two senior appearances for the Club.
Rowe was handed a squad number shortly before Wigan started their Betfred Women’s Challenge Cup campaign, she explained: “I’d done one or two sessions with the squad beforehand and then got told I’d be getting a squad number. It was quite a shock, I was honoured to be trusted with a squad number as I was out last year with an an ACL injury but it was something I was looking forward to and pleased to be given the opportunity.
“The step up and the physically of the game is massively different. Being around the girls they’ve really helped me fit in and I feel like I’m ready now to play at this higher level.”
Rowe is keen to continue her great start for the Warriors, after coming back from a long-term ACL injury: “I was out for 15-months altogether but it was 10-months post-operation when I came back to play for my Community Club. I did have some paths to playing coming back from injury but it’s something that you’ve got to face head on, if you start worrying about it that’s when things can go wrong so you’ve got to take it in your stride and get on with.”
Rowe scored a debut double in a 68-0 victory over Salford Red Devils in the first group game of the Betfred Women’s Challenge Cup before scoring another try in Sunday’s victory over Barrow. The full-back added a crucial conversion to give Wigan the Win in Cumbria.
Discussing the winning conversion, she said: “After Kaitlin (Hilton) scored I picked the ball up to take it over to Emma (Knowles) but she got a bit of a knock in that second half so she told me to take it and that’s when I realised that the pressure was kind of on with the scores level.
“It was quite nerve-racking but it’s something that I’ve done a hundred times in training before so I just took it as it was and luckily it went over.”
Reflecting on the physicality of Sunday’s second group game, she said: “We didn’t play as well as we know we can, but there’s definitely a lot of learnings we can take from that performance. We showed a lot of character in the second half to come back and there’s plenty for us to take on board going into the final group game against Cardiff.
“From here it’s business as usual – training hard and we won’t be taking our foot off the gas. We want to compete and we want to finish top of that group, so we won’t be slowing down and we want to do well in that final game.”
Wigan Warriors Women take on Cardiff Demons in their final Betfred Challenge Cup Group game on Sunday 7th April at Robin Park Arena.
