YORK City Knights Ladies have signed four France internationals from Catalans Dragons, all of whom could debut against Wigan Warriors on Sunday (3pm).

York have signed Elisa Akpa, Anais Fourcroy, Margot Canal and Leila Bessahli from Catalans after the Ladies’ joint-training camp in the south of France this week.

The quartet arrive following the end of the Dragons’ domestic season and will be hoping to impress in the Betfred Women’s Super League before this autumn’s World Cup.

Full-back or back-rower Elisa Akpa is France’s vice-captain while Anais Fourcroy and Leila Bessahli are second rowers and props respectively. Margot Canal is a pacey winger.

All four could feature in the LNER Community Stadium clash with Wigan this weekend, a match which will be livestreamed on Our League.

On the trip to France and her new recruits, York director of rugby Lindsay Anfield said: “We went over there to have a training trip with Catalans Dragons, to have some time on the field together and to begin a relationship between the two clubs.

“As a result of that, four of the girls wanted to come over to England. They’ve got the World Cup coming up and their club teams aren’t in training at the minute.

“We offered them housing over here and to come train with the Knights to keep them playing rugby until the World Cup.

“We’ve got a lot of injuries in the camp and the opportunity presented itself for these girls to come to York and get some match action.

“Ahead of this weekend, we were down to 15 fit players – this isn’t a case of us dropping any of our girls for the new signings, we absolutely need them and I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do.”