WOMEN’S rugby league is gearing towards its best and biggest campaign so far, with Super League, Championship and League One seasons all due to start this weekend.

Saints travel to Wigan’s Robin Park to take on the reigning champions on Sunday (1pm) ­— a team they lost to three times last season.

The season will be played across 14 rounds, concluding on Sunday September 29, at which stage the top four teams in the competition will enter the semi-final play-offs.

This will see first place play fourth, with second and third coming head to head.

The Women’s Grand Final will be played on Sunday 13 October at the Emerald Headingley Stadium, Leeds.

Saints and England back rower Emily Rudge is looking forward to the campaign ahead as the women’s game goes from strength to strength.

She said: “It’s grown more in the last 18 months than it had in the previous 15 years when I started playing.

“It’s taken really off since the last World Cup and it’s about to get even bigger and better.

“Full-time professionalism has already reached Australia and it’s definitely something that would make a massive difference to the game over here.

A PE teacher, Rudge took three and a half weeks unpaid leave to play in Australia in 2017 when she was named England’s best and fairest player.

She has been a regular since being called into the England squad at 16 and is now hoping to secure a place on the proposed tour to the Southern Hemisphere at the end of this year, with the 2021 World Cup, alongside the men’s.