Nobody likes the play-offs. Well, nobody except twisted neutral bastards who enjoy seeing others suffer likes the play-offs. It’s a wicked sort of Stockholm Syndrome which determines that at this time of year, as the Elland Road faithful look over their shoulder and think ‘please, please, no’, there are a number of teams licking their lips for the play-offs, giving everything they’ve got in the vain hope of scraping a shot at the most vicious wheel of fortune sport has to offer.

A glance over at the Whites’ women’s side, who are chilling in 5th place with two games left to play, will tell you that the competition format of the women’s pyramid needs some revision. Only one side will gain promotion from Division One North – Hull City, or Middlesbrough if the Tigresses slip up – while everyone else who has been out of sight of the top and bottom of the table for weeks continues playing games with little at stake. Where’s the jeopardy, the torture? With the end of the season drawing in, Simon Wood’s Leeds United side are content to do without permutations, narratives or big red lines.

“We want to build for next season and that starts now,” the Whites boss said at the weekend. That’s what this lull at the end of the campaign is for then, experimenting and making preparations for next year’s assault on the sole promotion spot.

There’s no better time to try a few things out than in a competitive game which has no bearing on your team’s future and on Sunday, neither Leeds nor their hosts Stockport County had anything but glory and 5th place to play for. With nowt to lose and at least something to gain, the six goals scored suggest the sides were hardly less motivated in those prizes than they would have been by the continued hope of a place in the third tier.

No sooner had United taken the lead through Ellie Dobson were the Hatters proving there was life in their season yet, as Emma Lysons skipped out of Kath Smith’s reach to claim a crossfield ball which put her through on goal. With both players tussling, the referee judged in the hosts’ favour when Lysons fell to the floor in the box, giving County captain Kennedy Owen the opportunity to level.

Hoping to help restore her side’s lead, Smith shouted “Jess is there!” as Charlyann Pizzarello advanced into Stockport’s half. For a Leeds United player, there can be few words so reassuring as an indication that Jess Rousseau is on hand to finish off the move. She’s done it, on average, just shy of once per game this season, so giving her the ball in the right position creates as good a chance to score as any. It’s why Rousseau was awarded Leeds United’s Women’s Player of the Season; her presence gets results.

It doesn’t seem fair that the goalscorers are most often deemed ‘the best’. As Rousseau humbly noted in her reception speech, most of those goals were made when her teammates passed it to her, and none of them would count for anything if the defence weren’t doing their job at the other end.

Izzy, my best mate at my team Leeds Hyde Park, feels particularly passionate about this. A centre-back (obviously), she always votes for a defensive player when it comes to sending the captain our vote for man of the match. Surely she’ll give that up now we’ve won 9-0, I said to myself, as she dictated her vote to a passenger while driving us back to Leeds. Hearing her nominate a defender after her bestie, collapsed in the back seat, had personally slogged out five of our goals, I thought, ‘you bastard’.

Republica, another team in our league, might have a better way of doing it. At the foot of their match reports, they nominate both standout attacking and defensive players, one of each. Problem then is, with as many of two out of 11 listed as ‘particularly good’, any of the other nine players might wonder if they’re ‘particularly average’.

The problem is that most of the time there’s not a lot of glamour to defending well. Most matchgoers will only notice a centre-back’s positioning when it’s bad, and no single person can take the credit for a clean sheet.

In the part of the season when games are always cagey and rarely dramatic, it was satisfying to see Jess Rousseau denied by a spectacular piece of defending. Pizzarello’s through ball was perfect, evading the outstretched boot of County’s Francesca Davies and setting up Rousseau to do what she does best. Thank goodness for Gemma Lancaster, making defenders glamorous again with her stunning last-ditch tackle, swiping the ball from under Rousseau at the final moment.

If attacking is the best form of defence, then County’s front line were starving the likes of Lancaster of more such brilliant moments. Swarmed at a goal kick, Lucy Turner booted the ball to a blue shirt, allowing Jessica Gillin to shimmy past Sarah Danby and send the home side into the break with a 2-1 lead.

Collecting her Player of the Year trophy last week, Rousseau attributed her 2023/2024 goal frenzy to “more luck than judgement”, but it was only by her own judgement that she confidently ignored the calls of Sian Gibril-Keating, who was open in the middle as Rousseau cut in from wide in the 65th minute. Sandwiched between two blues, Rousseau knew she could finish – and she did.

But County captain Owen was determined to snatch the limelight, thwacking a twenty yard volley at Carrie Simpson’s goal. Rebounding off the crossbar, the would-be stunner inspired a chorus of ‘ooh’ and set Simpson up for her own moment in the sun as she tipped Harriet Houghton’s follow-up round the post on the stretch.

Simpson was at full stretch again when the gifted Owen lifted a free kick over the Whites’ wall, but her reaching glove only pushed the ball into the back of the net to give the hosts a lead with ten minutes to play.

But this was a nothing-to-lose Leeds side who had bagged ten goals in three outings. Inspired by Kath Smith’s off-the-bench antics the previous week, substitute Katie Astle was happy to supply the eleventh, glancing home another superb corner, delivered by Danby, to pull Leeds level.

Though his side wanted more, Whites boss Simon Wood was happy with what the game showed of the players’ mentality. “There’s a little bit of frustration that we’ve drawn the game, but then in the post-match huddle there at the end, there’s some pats on the back because we’ve gone and worked hard, they’ve fought for each other.

“The big positive from us is that, a lot of times this season, we’re never beaten. And even in games where we look out of it, we’ll keep fighting and we’ll keep looking for a way back into the game.”

The draw keeps Leeds in 5th place, while the gap to 4th remains six points with two games left to play. Though it’s not the part they wanted, United still have a role to play in the promotion race, hosting league leaders Hull City on Sunday. ⬢