It's fair to say that, with all the emphasis on the GF, the Challenge Cup has lost most of it's sparkle.
Although keeping the SL clubs away from the comp until the latter stages may help with fixture congestion, it completely ruins the chances of any smaller clubs reaching the finals.
IF a Championship club can make it into the last 8, they are likely to face one of the current top 8 into SL.
Zero chance of an "easy" run to Wembley and the cup is almost an additional play off comp, rather than a "romantic" run to Wembley (or Tottenham).

The Championship sides that competed over the weekend deserve huge, huge credit for not saving themselves for their league competition, with cup progress being "impossible".

Fev gave Catalan a huge scare and on Catalans home patch, a phenomenal effort.

Completely agree Wrencat. The Challenge Cup’s been devalued by not having the SL teams come in until the Round of 16. The early rounds should involve Community clubs and League 1 with the Championship and SL clubs coming in at 32 teams. OK there might be some mullerings but there’d be some surprises as well and it would make “The Road to Wembley (or wherever we’re playing the Final)” more in interesting and open. The empty stands at Headingley, Wigan and Warrington should be enough to tell the RFL it ain’t working. Hopefully we can buck the trend v Wigan and BV’s packed out.

The super league clubs simply MUST come in earlier. Saints took a decent following to Whitehaven, including a lad I know who hasn't attended 1 single super league match yet this season. I'd be more inclined to go and watch wire if we were drawn away at somewhere like Barrow, York, Newcastle etc.

Agreed, there is a novelty value in going somewhere new / different and although attendances are dropping in the cup, at least some of the smaller clubs would have a chance of drawing in some new faces, Barrow, yesterday, being a good example.

We’d probably lose though! Lolz

The attendance is hardly surprising with the quality of rugby on show . You really do wonder where the game is going watching that as tv worth material . It must be a nightmare as a commentator or pundit trying to sound positive .

I take it you didn't go yourself then

Luckily Whitehaven and Barrow provided TV worth material and both clubs had attendances higher than the Warrington fickle fanbase.

This would seem to be a clear endorsement for getting the SL clubs into the comp in the previous round.

There are issues regarding the number of fixtures etc but, the Challenge Cup certainly needs a boost.
Since the introduction of the playoffs and Grand Final, the cup has gone from being an end of season highlight and turned into a second rate competition squeezed in between the regular weekly rounds of Super League and there can only ever be one event to close out the season.

However, it could certainly do with a lift and although we do now have some FTA games on Channel 4, which have been excellent, the Cup still remains the No 1 comp for allowing the masses to see "the greatest game" and for this reason, it does need to sparkle.

Nah he's a pretend saints fan with little interest in the game , that's why he's got so many user names, he also takes perverted pleasure in any Wakey, leigh, Salford, and Wire problems as well as any other club that's in his line of fire, with his intelligence he'd struggle to wind a clock up

Got great broadband in his mum’s bedroom though

King James - how is your Mum?