I’VE long since thought that one of the worst suggestions made by IMG was the proposal to move the Challenge Cup from its previous role as a competition in the second half of the season to a position early in the season.
As we saw at the weekend, just as the Super League had been building up momentum with every game being covered on Sky Sports, along comes the Challenge Cup fourth round and we find only one game, between Wakefield and Leeds, being covered by the BBC on its iPlayer on Friday night, while the Sportsman YouTube channel also covered a game on Saturday afternoon and for some unfathomable reason they selected the game between Huddersfield Giants and Hull KR.
Even at the time of the draw a few weeks ago it was obvious that that game was likely to be a one-sided non-event. And so it proved.
Perhaps it was symbolic of the current status of the Challenge Cup that the lights went out at Wakefield on Friday night, although fortunately they eventually came back on.
Trinity played extremely well to defeat the Rhinos and it was good to see that there were no further interruptions from the video referee adjudicating tries or captain’s challenges, which don’t arise in Challenge Cup matches.
But let’s go back to IMG’s suggestions for the Challenge Cup back in 2022.
They suggested that at the last-16 stage the Challenge Cup should be two-legged, with an aggregate score determining who advances to the quarter-finals. Can you imagine how attractive most of the ties from the weekend would have been if we had to sit through them again?
IMG suggested that the two legs should be played on the first two weekends of March, with the Super League season beginning on the third weekend.
IMG were on firmer ground, however, when they suggested that the Super League season should be cut from 27 rounds to 22.
The two-legged proposal was designed to guarantee every Super League club an additional home game to help soften the blow of lost attendance revenue from fewer league games, to reward non-Super League clubs who advance to the last 16 with the opportunity to host a Super League side and to also ensure clubs have to play an additional game to reach the final. Unfortunately none of those reasons stands up to scrutiny.
IMG also proposed that a new weekend event should be pencilled in as a replacement for the Magic Weekend. That is another idea that has fallen by the wayside.
The original rationale of the Challenge Cup was that the competition would begin roughly two-thirds of the way through the season. Its role was to keep the season alive for all the clubs by giving them a second trophy to play for.
It’s about time the RFL reverted to that original idea.
In the meantime, by having the Challenge Cup fourth round being played over the weekend, much of the momentum that came at the start of the season for Super League has been dissipated.