A good weekend for the Challenge Cup

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There is a perverse irony that each Super League side played their most important game of the season this weekend, yet (for those at home at least) each one drew their lowest crowd of the season (and one that will probably remain as the lowest crowd of the season).

What I love about the Challenge Cup is that the results are meaningful. If you lose, that's one trophy you won't be winning for that season. Lose a match in Super League and it isn't that big of a deal.

Take Wigan. They lost to Leigh in round 1 but ultimately in a top 6 play off system that result will make little difference as to whether Wigan retain their Super League title in October. Their loss to Hull FC means as far as one competition goes, there is no making up the ground.

I think this year has been a good one for the Challenge Cup. The seeded draw giving lower league clubs a home fixture against Super League opponents in the last round was largely seen as a success.

Of course, a good set of ties helps. Widnes hosting local rivals Warrington, who have had a stuttering start to the season promised to be an intriguing tie. And so it proved, with Widnes being in the contest until the final minutes. Widnes' biggest crowd since 2017 would have proved a welcome boost to the club's finances too.

The only shame is that there was no way to watch this match apart from at the stadium, unless you were someone who may have come across an illicit YouTube stream on Saturday evening.

A Bradford side travelling to a crisis-hit Salford also gave the potential for a shock. And whilst Bradford led at times, Salford had too much in the second half.

The Challenge Cup provides us with more variety than Super League. We have had nine different sides in Challenge Cup Finals since 2020 (only Wigan have played in more than one). We have had seven different winners in the last eight seasons. Wakefield expected, every side currently in Super League has reached a Challenge Cup Final since 2017.

By comparison, the four Super League winners in 30 years, one of whom are now a Championship side can feel stale.

The more unpredictable nature of the Challenge Cup is a selling point of it. Or at least it should be. This a competition that delivers on the field frequently. It did so again this weekend.

Yet it cannot be denied that off the field it is going backwards, or if you're feeling kind, stagnating. Attendances for the Challenge Cup Final have declined, the earlier rounds suffer similar problems of half empty stadiums or worse, the competition is only shown on broadcast TV from the quarter finals.

This weekend was yet another good one for the Challenge Cup. The players delivered. The wider game now needs to give the competition the profile it deserves. Surely this isn't beyond us?

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