Featherstone Rovers awaited the winners of the second AB Sundecks 1895 Cup game between the Sheffield Eagles and Leigh Centurions although the bookies, pundits, and most supporters believed that there could only be one winner.

The Eagles were given an almost unprecedented thirty-four-point start on the handicap coupon as they looked to overcome a six-place difference in the league table and pull off a miracle result and get themselves a trip to London.

But Mark Aston loves to be an underdog, and Adrian Lam wouldn´t take the challenge lightly.

A place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on the 28^th May was up for grabs as Barrow Raiders hosted Featherstone Rovers in the first semi-final of the AB Sundecks 1895 Cup in wall to wall sunshine on the Cumbria coast.

Featherstone are currently sat at the top of the Championship and remain unbeaten in the league in 2022 while their opponents, who have performed far better than most pundits would have predicted, are currently in sixth spot.

Barrow would be hoping for a better performance to the one that they put in when they were dominated by Featherstone in mid-April and went down by 58-6 in the game in West Yorkshire.

Few gave the home side any hope of springing a surprise against Brian McDermott´s superstars.

Just like the first semi-final, the second men´s game at Elland Road saw adjacent two sides thrown together for the second final spot as the Huddersfield Giants looked to secure their first final spot since 2009 with the hurdle in their way being a Hull KR side hoping that they could return for the first time since their heavy defeat in 2015.

Tony Smith´s main aim, before his departure from the Robins at the end of the season, is to get his side into finals and give themselves a chance of silverware.

Ian Watson´s sleeping Giants from Huddersfield also need to win some major silverware to end a drought and win their first Challenge Cup since 1953.

There was the potential for it to be another classic, but we were to be disappointed.

The luck of the draw threw together Super League´s top two sides in a semi-final encounter of the highest calibre as St Helens faced the Wigan Warriors for a place in the Challenge Cup final at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at the end of the month.

Saints won the Super League encounter earlier in the season on Good Friday, but this was the Challenge Cup, and you can never write off Wigan in the cup, even if the bookies had made Saints the clear favourites and given Wigan an eight-point start on the handicap coupon.

The bookies believed that Saints were a shoe-in for the first final berth, it would take a miracle for Wigan to progress.

The Women’s Challenge Cup Final, the first game of a superb Elland Road triple header, saw the top two female sides in the country up against one another as St Helens faced the Leeds Rhinos for the first silverware of the season.

The game was played out in front of the BBC TV cameras and shown live to the nation on BBC2 and what a great advert for the game, and specifically the women´s game it was.

Saints knocked the Rhinos out at the semi-final stage last season before going on to beat York in the final and the Rhinos were runners up to Saints in the Women´s Super League last season.

It really was a match between the two best and most successful sides in the Women´s game.

Two sides in the top half of the table met for the final game in round ten of the Betfred Championship as third placed York City Knights made a long Bank Holiday Monday trip across country to Cumbria to take on the Barrow Raiders who came into the game in sixth place but with a chance of closing the gap on the sides above them.

The smart money was on a City Knights win with the bookies giving Barrow a fourteen-point start on the handicap coupon, a strong expectation before kick-off that York would pick up their seventh win of the season.

Round Ten of the 2022 Betfred Championship saw plenty of tries as the sides continued their jostling for position as we head towards mid-season.

There were seven matches over four days with Leigh and Sheffield meeting on Friday night and the intriguing encounter between York and Barrow being chosen for the Monday evening game on Premier Sports.

On Saturday Newcastle played hosts to Halifax while the bulk of games were on Sunday afternoon with Batley at Workington, Widnes at Featherstone, Dewsbury at London and Bradford at Whitehaven.

Following the midweek departure of coach Simon Finnigan, the Widnes Vikings had the most difficult of tasks as they travelled over the Pennines to take on the Champions elect in the form of Brian McDermott´s Featherstone Rovers who were seeking the win to go back above Leigh to the top of the table.

Some recent heavy defeats have shattered the Vikings confidence and dashed their hopes of a play-off place, but Featherstone are flying high remaining unbeaten thus far in the championship season.

The bookies were certain the Rovers would pick up the two points, and few, if any, in the stadium would argue any different.

Round eleven of Super League 2022 was the one where Hull FC had their change to boost their points difference as they welcomed the league´s whipping boys, the side adrift at the bottom, Toulouse Olympique to the MKM Stadium.

A win for the Black & Whites would lift them above the Huddersfield Giants and into fourth, and more importantly put some breathing space between themselves and the red half of the city.

The bookies gave Toulouse a sixteen-point start on the handicap coupon with no expectation that they could spring a surprise and register their second win of the season.

While the Wigan Warriors are living up to, and possibly exceeding, pre-season expectations the reverse is true of the Warrington Wolves who are currently in the bottom half of the table and looking for their sixth win of the season to try and lift themselves into the top six.

George Williams returned to the Wolves side against his former employer, but the home side were still without talisman Stefan Ratchford while Wigan were still missing Sam Powell, Thomas Leuluai and Kai Pearce-Paul.

The bookies were struggling to split the sides and gave the Wolves a two-point start on the handicap coupon but to take the points the Warriors would have to win at a ground from where they´ve returned home pointless from their last five visits.

The first meeting of the season between West Yorkshire rivals Wakefield Trinity and the Huddersfield Giants found the two-side experiencing diverse fortunes so far in 2022 as both sides strive for the play-offs.

The Giants were in sixth position in the table after ten rounds and came into the game knowing that a win would lift them above both Hull clubs and into the top four, a win for Wakefield would see them up one place into ninth before the rest of the round takes place over the coming days.

The bookies were struggling to separate the sides, the home side getting a four-point start on the handicap coupon.

Ninth-placed Bradford Bull welcomed Featherstone Rovers to their narrow Odsall pitch, off the back of  two narrow defeats, including a loss to Halifax Panthers, who played 79 minutes of the match with 12 men.

The visitors arrived unbeaten, amidst a flurry of speculation around the possible signing of former Wigan full back/centre Zak Hardaker, who the Cherry and Whites had released "to persue career options" in his home territory of West Yorkshire.

Of immediate interest, though, was the return of winter signing Jesse Sene-Lefao following an injury in the opening game of the season.

At stake were two vital league points - as well as the Peter Fox memorial trophy.

It must be exciting to be a Hull FC supporter, exciting to go to a game not knowing whether the Dr Jekyll Hull who can demolish the Leeds Rhinos and beat Warrington would be in attendance, or whether it would be the Mr Hyde Hull who can get beaten by Castleford, the red side of Hull, or Huddersfield.

Exciting but frustrating.

The final game of the tenth round of Super League 2022 saw an unusually timed Sunday evening encounter between Hull FC and the Catalans Dragons with the bookies believing that it would be the French side who would be taking the points back with them to Perpignan, giving FC a four-point start on the coupon.

A win for FC would lift them above Hull KR into fourth spot but a loss by eight or more would see them drop to eighth, it was a massively significant game for the Airlie Birds.

Round Nine of the Betfred Championship was spread over Friday, Sunday and Monday with a game on each of the outliers, and five fixtures on Sunday afternoon.

Sheffield and Newcastle got proceedings underway on Friday with the encounter between Featherstone and Bradford chosen as the Monday night Premier Sports game.

The remaining five games saw Dewsbury against Workington, Halifax playing Barrow, Leigh at home to the London Broncos, Widnes entertaining Batley and York taking on Whitehaven.

Barrow Raiders needed to get back on the bike as they continued their push for a play-off place, and to be the top Cumbrian sides, as they travelled to West Yorkshire and The New Shay to take on the Halifax Panthers who themselves have great expectations of finishing in the higher echelons.

A win for Barrow would ensure that they wouldn´t finish the round lower than fourth position in the table but it Halifax could pick up the two points then they would likely finish the weekend in the top half of the table.

The bookies fancied a home win with the Raiders being given a twelve-point start on the coupon, indicative of the only winning one game in their last five outings, the one-point win over the Bulls.

Round Ten of Super League 2022 saw the return of Channel 4 coverage as they set up their cameras at the DW Stadium, home of the Wigan Warriors, for the visit of the Salford Red Devils as the home side looked to return to the top of table on the same points as St Helens.

The biggest news out of Wigan this week was the permanent departure of Zak Hardaker from Matt Peet´s side, but they also came into the game without the services of Sam Powell and Tommy Leuluai.

The Red Devils are also without a host of stars with Tim Lafai, Deon Cross, Shane Wright, Ryan Lannon and notably Marc Sneyd all missing from their side.

The bookies thought that there would only be one winner, giving the Red Devils an eighteen-point start on the coupon.

Following the shock announcement that Tony Smith would be leaving Hull KR at the end of the season, the Robins came into a rare Saturday afternoon game with their eyes on a potential fourth place in Super League, but they would need to defeat a Wakefield Trinity side who desperately needed a win after a couple of recent heavy defeats, to Wigan and Castleford.

The visitors had their free scoring talisman Tom Johnstone back in the side along with full back Max Jowitt and half back Jordan Abdull to give them a far more robust look.

KR had escaped with the points from a close game with Toulouse on Bank Holiday Monday and they welcomed back Lachlan Coote and utility back Sam Wood who were both absent in France.

The bookies had KR as the favourites and had given the visitors a ten-point start on the handicap coupon.

The Round Ten fixture with most significance for the rest of Super League 2022 was the bottom of the table clash between the Leeds Rhinos and Toulouse Olympique XIII as the French side looked to secure the two points which would lift them above the Rhinos and push Jamie Jones-Buchanan´s side into bottom spot.

The two sides have met twice before: in the Challenge Cup in 2005 and in the Super 8´s play-off in 2018, the Leeds side emerging as victors on both previous occasions.

 But with Toulouse having pushed Hull KR last weekend and with a victory over St Helens under their belt, they came into the game high on confidence that they could spring an upset.

The bookies were struggling to split the two sides, giving the visitors a just a six-point start on the handicap coupon.

Castleford's Mend-A-Hose Jungle played host to a clash between two widely different teams: a home club still struggling to find any consistent form in its 'new era' – despite getting two of their three wins this season over the Easter weekend - and the visiting champions St Helens, who have lost just one game in defence of their title so far and that a surprise loss to basement club Toulouse Olympique.

Following that busy schedule, Saints coach Kristian Wolf names an unfamiliar line-up after the strains of the Easter schedule, with seven young players moving up from the reserves where they regularly play together.

The Tigers' Lee Radford resisted the temptation to make whole-sale changes, but injury meant James Clare started at full-back while youngster Jason Qareqare had his first start of the year on the left wing.

Ellery Hanley MBE today announces a squad of 29 players who are currently in his plans following his appointment as Head Coach of the Combined Nations All Stars team who will face England in a Mid-Season International at Warrington’s Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday June 18.

Hanley, the Rugby League legend who has succeeded Tim Sheens as the All Stars coach following their successful debut fixture against England last summer, has spoken to all of the players, and declared himself “overwhelmed and so impressed” by the level of excitement and enthusiasm ahead of the fixture.

The list has a strong Polynesian flavour, with nine players of Samoan heritage and six from the latest Rugby League powerhouse of Tonga.