PERHAPS it’s inevitably asking for trouble designating an early-January slot for the first round of the Betfred Challenge Cup.
In fairness it’s difficult to guess, in this country, quite when adverse weather conditions will hit, but it has to be said that January has to be among the favourite months for pitches to be frozen or snow to fall.
Given the timing of the Wembley final – on, this year, the last Saturday of May – the early rounds of Rugby League’s blue-riband competition had, I suppose, to start this month.
But as eight of Saturday first-round ties were called off – given deadlines, I’m filing this offering before the scheduled games yesterday (Sunday, January 11) – it’s to be hoped the weather relents.
Despite the grim forecasts (is there a scaremongering element at play in the media, I sometimes have to wonder?) it did feel, early on Friday morning, that we’d possibly got away with it.
But then news came through that the tie between Rochdale Mayfield and Ince Rose Bridge (a game, moreover, which had been scheduled to be broadcast on BBC iPlayer) had been called off because of a frozen pitch.
Shortly afterwards I learned that the match at Telford Raiders, against London Chargers, had been postponed (no surprise at all, this, given the graphics on the national news TV programmes, which indicated heavy snow in the Midlands, indeed the town of Telford itself featured on that night’s bulletins).
And, around lunchtime, it was confirmed the game in Halifax between King Cross Park and National Conference League champions West Hull had fallen victim.
On Saturday morning it was announced that the ties at Leeds neighbours Stanningley and Woodhouse Warriors, where the respective visitors were to have been Dewsbury Moor Maroons and Mirfield Spartans, were off.
Before lunch, Brighouse Rangers let it be known that their pitch was unplayable for the tie with Lock Lane and, perhaps saddest of all, Heworth – who had been confident of play taking place against the RAF – rang me shortly before the scheduled kick-off time to state that the match couldn’t go ahead.
With Wigan St Judes versus Leigh Miners Rangers also off, only six of Saturday’s games were played – readers will know, in the rest of this issue, whether or not all three of Sunday’s matches went ahead – and it is fervently hoped that the weather will relent by the weekend, otherwise second-round games on the last weekend of the month, when Betfred Championship teams enter the competition, will of course be thrown into jeopardy.
Against all this, off-pitch matters such as the future (or lack of it) of the National Conference League has perhaps maybe had to go on the back burner a little.
I touched last week on the fact that the NCL is likely to suffer its demise in the year of its 40th birthday, having been usurped by the Rugby Football League’s plans for its National Community Rugby League, which will involve two top divisions and a number of regional conferences from March.
I understand that, this week, a management meeting of the NCL will set a date for an emergency general meeting of clubs to take place before the end of this month, with a view to what I have often described as the amateur game’s flagship league being dissolved.
I imagine that meeting, when it takes place, will be sombre – or maybe fiery. Perhaps even both, if that’s not an oxymoron, especially as I’ve heard that members of the NCL management have been issued with invitations to join the RFL management teams.
I can only imagine what my former editor at the Rugby Leaguer, Steve Brady, would have made of it.
Steve stood absolutely four-square alongside me when I came under heavy fire from the RFL, back in the late 1990s, for pointing out some pertinent facts at the height of their ‘war’ with the British Amateur Rugby League Association.
I’ve never forgotten that. Sports politics can be brutal and Steve was not only a courageous editor, he was a very good friend and a very good man, and I was devastated to learn that he had passed away on December 29, on what was his 60th birthday.
I and my missus have many happy memories of Steve and his wife Denise, not least some special nights in each other’s homes.
Steve really enjoyed visiting several pubs out my way, including the Scarborough in Castleford (sadly no longer a pub) and the Garden Gate in Hunslet, which is a truly beautiful building.
And I’ll never forget hearing him calling, in his Wigan brogue, ‘Phil?’ when I was having a quiet pint at the races at, of all places, Dingle, on Ireland’s western coast, back in 2003. You wouldn’t make that up. We had another happy get-together, even if I can’t recall whether any of us had any winnings to spend.
As I emailed to Denise last week, Steve Brady was a very easy bloke to get along with, one of the best, in fact he and Denise were a wonderful couple. May the lad rest in peace.
I wouldn’t have minded getting his thoughts, incidentally, on what exactly has befallen Rugby League in the north-east of England?
It’s all become a bit murky (I didn’t receive any results of fixtures at all last year from the GameDay agency, an omission due to be rectified in 2026) so it’s hard to establish what exactly has been going on, but what is a fact is that the region’s professional side, Newcastle Thunder, have fallen dramatically from grace and propped up Betfred League One in 2025.
Perhaps even more importantly, the amateur game also appears to have gone backwards.
As far as I can ascertain, for three or four years from 2017 there were open-age teams in place at such as Catterick Crusaders, Cramlington Rockets, Durham Demons, Durham Tigers, Gateshead Storm, Jarrow Vikings, Peterlee Pumas, Wallsend Eagles and West View Warriors.
From the early 2020s, meanwhile, an apparently thriving youth and junior scene embraced the likes of Catterick Crusaders, Consett Eagles, Cramlington Rockets, Durham Demons, Durham Tigers, Friarage Falcons, Gateshead Storm, Hartlepool Hurricanes, Jarrow Vikings, Newcastle Magpies, Wallsend Centurions, Whitley Bay Barbarians and Yarm Wolves.
Clubs from beyond the north-east of England (such as, at various stages, Cumbrian outfits Aspatria Hornets, Cockermouth Titans, Egremont Rangers, Hensingham, Kells, Lowca, Maryport, Seaton Rangers and Wath Brow Hornets, together with Scotland’s Edinburgh Eagles) were also involved in the north-east competitions, along with North Yorkshire’s Northallerton.
Indeed, the north-east appeared to be something of a powerbase for Rugby League – to the point at which I felt it necessary to contact The Times, which had made fun of a local MP for having suggested that the region was a ‘heartland’ area for our sport.
I strongly backed that MP but, in truth, I’m not so sure that I could adopt quite the same stance two or three years down the line.
I’ll be watching developments in 2026 with interest, that’s for sure.
One section of our sport that is certainly in rude health is the Student game and the England Universities manager David Butler, who had hoped to be able to name the North and South squads for this February’s Origin clash in Sheffield (from which the England squad will be selected) before Christmas, now hopes to announce the line-ups this week.
There’ll be some travelling involved for the Origin players but none should, or are likely to, complain.
Their travel issues will, I imagine, be as nothing compared to those of Aberavon Fighting Irish, who were due to play Irish outfit Banbridge Broncos in the Challenge Cup yesterday (Sunday, January 11).
Ian Golden, the Wales RL media manager, told me on Saturday: “Aberavon will be doing four countries in a day, twice, to play in the Challenge Cup.
“They travel from Port Talbot at 4am to Bristol for an 8.15am flight to Dublin, then the bus to Northern Ireland.
“They’ll play the match then it’s the bus to Dublin, an 8.15pm flight to Bristol, and back to Port Talbot by about midnight if all goes well.”
All I could say to Ian was “blimey!”.