One hundred and twenty-three days since the Super League 2021 Grand Final saw St Helens narrowly beat the Catalans Dragons to lift the trophy, last season´s top two sides signalled the start of the 2022 season with the season opener at the Totally Wicked Stadium.

Many pundits have predicted that it will be these two sides, last years Minor Premiers and Grand Final winners, sharing the honours again in Super League XXVII and this fixture would be the pick of any weekend in the top flight of the competition, a win would give the victors a great boost at the start of the season.

A fixture between Featherstone Rovers and Leigh Centurions would be the game of the round on any given weekend of Betfred Championship rugby and with both clubs hopeful and optimistic of ending the season by being promoted to Super League for 2023 there was little wonder that Premier Sports selected it for their second edition of Monday night football.

Both sides secured a win in the competitions opening round last weekend, and knew that they needed a win to keep level with the three unbeaten sides at the top of the table; Widnes, Batley and Barrow.

It was two coaches with masses of Super League experience and pedigree as Brian McDermott came up against Adrian Lam in an early season crunch game.

There were six Sunday matches for round two of the Betfred Championship with the remaining game between promotion hopefuls Leigh and Featherstone having been chosen as the televised game by Premier Sports for Monday night.

Bradford had a home game against the Sheffield Eagles while London had to travel to Halifax to take on the Panthers.

Batley were at Newcastle, Workington at Widnes and York hosted Dewsbury while there was a Cumbrian derby between Whitehaven and Barrow.

After both suffering losses in the opening round of the Betfred Championship, it was a meeting of the York City Knights and Dewsbury Rams from the LNER Stadium for a Yorkshire derby between the sides separated by just over forty miles.

Both sides ended their 2021 seasons outside the play-off places and needed the confidence boost of a first win in 2022 to get their first points on the board, coaches James Ford and Lee Greenwood knew the importance of the fixture.

The draw for the third and fourth rounds of the Betfred Challenge Cup 2022 threw up a myriad of intriguing fixtures as the championship sides were thrown into the mix for the fourth-round fixtures.

Both rounds will take place in February, the third on the weekend of the 12^th and 13^th and the fourth round over the weekend of the 26^th to 28^th of February.

 At least three games from each round will be televised, one on BBC live stream, one on The Sportsman, and one on OurLeague.

York City Knights and Featherstone Rovers rounded off the opening round of the Betfred Championship at the former's LNER Community Stadium, with the visitors the red hot favourites to win - and indeed to get to the season climax in the Million Pound Game.

Championship One side Oldham Roughyeds were massive favourites to make progress into the third round of the Challenge Cup as they faced Castleford Lock Lane from the National Conference League One in the final second round tie.

As the kick-off approached the rain started to fall but with an artificial surface it wouldn´t affect the conditions underfoot but may cause more issues with ball handling, but few gave any hope for Lock Lane as they took on a side who, on paper, were far too strong for them.

It was a bumper opening round of the Betfred Championship as twelve of the fourteen sides were in action on Sunday afternoon.

With the game between the York City Knights and Featherstone Rovers being chosen by Premier Sports as their first live broadcast game for Monday Night Football, the remaining fixtures were played out over two kick-off times.

Getting us underway was the early kick off between Workington and Newcastle while may eyes will have been on how relegated Leigh Centurions would start their campaign at home to Whitehaven, Dewsbury had a home game with Bradford while another Yorkshire derby saw Batley host Halifax, and Sheffield were away at Barrow while London had a home game against Widnes.

Round two of the Challenge Cup pitted Championship One side Rochdale Hornets against the newly christened Midlands Hurricanes with a game from Spotland.

The home side were without their stars Rangi Chase and Fui Fui MoiMoi but did have seasoned professional Sean Penkywicz amongst their ranks.

The sides finished seventh and eighth in Championship One last season just missing out on the play-offs.

Military forces clashed in Aldershot in the second round of the Betfred Challenge Cup, as the Royal Navy visited the British Army's home base in Aldershot for a keenly anticipated second round tie: the first time the two services have come face-to-face in the Cup.

The sailors qualfied for this this tie with a 60-0 trouncing of Bridgend Blue Bulls when the competition's first round kicked off on 14 January, while the soldiers had to come from behind with a late rally to earn their spot at Orrell st James the following afternoon.

 

The final game of the opening round of the Betfred Challenge Cup 2022 pitted South Yorkshire side Bentley ARLFC against West Yorkshire side Stanningley SARLC as the Yorkshire League side looked to spring a shock on the National Conference League One side and progress to a second-round game against Hunslet Club Parkside.

Despite having to travel it was Stanningley who were the clear favourites to progress but after a beating the British Army in the first round in 2019 and the RAF in 2020, Bentley fancied their chances of springing an upset.

Two weeks into the new year and the Betfred Challenge Cup competition for 2022 was already well underway as two towns synonymous with Rugby League Rochdale and Wigan, saw lower league sides Rochdale Mayfield and Wigan St Patricks set out on the long path to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and this year’s Cup Final.

Rochdale ply their trade in the top flight of the National Conference League while St Patricks are a division below but it was the visitors who went into the game coached by a man with a massive Challenge Cup pedigree, Andy Gregory.

A new year, a new season as the televised Betfred Challenge Cup got under way when Orrell St James entertained the Army in a first round match this afternoon.

The Army team reached the fourth round in in 2020 – the last full Cup season before Covid disruption took its toll on the amateur teams - before going down to Rochdale Hornets, Orrell have their own pedigree in the game – being the club where both Johnny Lomax and Kevin Brown started out in the game.

The popular and groundbreaking BBC streaming of the early rounds of the Betfred Challenge Cup will return when Orrell St James face the British Army at 1230pm on Saturday January 15.

And that will be followed in the Second Round two weeks later by the all-League 1 meeting between Rochdale Hornets – for whom 2022 marks the centenary of their only Challenge Cup triumph in 1922 – and Midlands Hurricanes, who will be playing their first competitive fixture since the rebranding of the club this winter.

The traditional Festive Challenge between the Leeds Rhinos and Wakefield Trinity brought down the curtain on a 2021 which had ended disappointingly for both sides.

The capacity at Headingley had been voluntarily limited to 9,999 but with some tickets remaining unsold it appeared that COVID concerns were forcing people to stay at home.

The Rhinos named a strong squad and included a young Jack Sinfield who would follow in his famous father’s footsteps and make his first senior appearance alongside new arrivals Aidan Sezer, James Bentley and Blake Austin.

Trinity looked somewhat weaker on paper with a large number of first-teamers standing down but they also gave debuts to new arrivals including Corey Hall, Lee Gaskell, and Liam Hood.

RLFANS.COM would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and hope that you all have a fantastic time with family and friends.

2021 has been another tough year for everyone and we hope that there is plenty of festive cheer to raise the mood.

May your stockings be filled with season tickets, replica shirts and anticipation of a fantastic rugby league season to come in 2022.

Have a fabulous day.

 

On the back of the announcement that Betfred Super League will be broadcast on both Sky Sports and Channel 4 in 2022, Super League can now confirm the full fixture schedule for the upcoming season.

St Helens will launch their defence of the Betfred Super League title at the home to Catalans Dragons, on Thursday 10 February (20:00), in a repeat of the 2021 Grand Final.

The clash between last year’s Grand Finalists will be the first live match on Sky Sports in 2022 – it will be followed on Friday night by Hull KR versus Wigan Warriors (20:00).

Super League has to announced a landmark deal which will see Channel 4 broadcast Betfred Super League matches in 2022.

This initial two-year partnership will see matches broadcast free-to-air for the first time in the competition’s 26-year history.

Channel 4 will broadcast 10 live games each season, starting with eight-time Champions Leeds Rhinos hosting Warrington Wolves on Saturday 12 February (12:30).

The remaining nine games will be spread across the season and will include two end of season Play-Off fixtures.

Once the gnashing of teeth over the postponement of the 2021 World Cup died down, little time was wasted in organising a one-off match between France and England in Perpignan, a double header with a women’s international between the same two sides.

Shaun Wane took charge of his side for just the second time, if you count the game against the Combined Nations, as they took on a French side who haven’t beaten England for three decades.

French rugby league is certainly on the up and up following the brilliant seasons from the Catalans Dragons and Toulouse Olympique XIII, and hopes were high locally that they might spring a surprise on the favourites as Wane blooded several new caps.

Craig Richards’ St Helens dominated England side travelled to Perpignan for a test match against the French national side in the last outing of 2021 in front of a sell-out crowd at the Stade Gilbert Brutus in a double-header with the men’s game.

Little was known about the opposition, but it was England who were the big favourites for the win, but a partisan home crowd could count as an extra player for the home side.

England won 54-4 in Carcassonne the last time that the two sides met almost three years ago in October 2018, but the promise from France was that this would be a very different game despite ‘Les Tricolores never having beaten England.