I remember back in the early 90's when the draw was being made. There was always an air of excitement and fear. If you drew Wigan it was pretty much curtains however secretly that was the tie that everybody wanted especially at home. These days there doesn't seem to be that same excitement. I don't think the tournament should be changed at all, I just think it needs a spark. Whether it'd be a giant killing, a Wigan style cup run, a classic final or a big name Aussie flying over just for the final it just needs that little something.

It's still IMO the biggest and best knock out tournament in world rugby league and there is no need to change something that has worked well for over 100 years.

I disagree there - I think that's the attitude that has prevailed in RL in general for the last 100 years, which is why we're in such a state now. The reason SL has overtaken the cup is precisely because it has been brave enough to begin to move with the times, where the Cup hasn't.

sl hasnt taken over the cup,
just in ur mind it has

This reall made me laugh.

So let me get this right you and others (wire fans mostly) are saying winning the CC is bigger than winning the GF and being CHAMPIONS?

Out of all the stupid things posted on here this is the most laughable of all of them.

Being the champs is the be all and end all in RL simple as.

no because being champions for me is winning the league, not the grand final,
and when you win the challenge cup are you not the challenge cup champions?

Only if you're a Wire.

Only if you're a person trying to market a game for as much profit as possible you mean.

The flaw in that argument is that, while I have a real soft spot for the Cup and I admire anyone who can finish top of the league, winning the Grand Final really is the ultimate test of a team. There are no flukes or lucky draws to help you reach a Grand Final. The intensity of the play-offs is amazing - and in practise has been far too much for most SL teams - and that only comes AFTER you've striven hard for a reasonably good finishing spot in the table.

My original question was how to regenerate interest in the Cup, when it so clearly has been superceded in terms of importance by the play-offs and the Grand Final?

What about making the CC competition a handicap format? ie the team that finishes the last superleague season top starts every cc round with one point and the team that finishes bottom of championship 1 starts with 35 points and so on. We used the same system in Amateur RL and it gave the lower teams a better chance / incentive and stopped big clubs fielding weaker teams.

I love the CC so i won't pan it, but with the CC you could be lucky enough to not face anyone of note and win it.
Now imagine this wigan v saints
Wire v leeds and hudds v (lets say Cas)
Wigan beat saints, wire beat leeds
Cas beat hudds
Then next round wire v cas, wigan v catalan, then cats and cas win then next round both cats and cas go out. All the big teams take each other out and some team whose biggest game was Cas win the cup.
It makes it romantic but it doesn't make it the premier comp.

The Gf is usually 2 teams at the peak of their game which,for a neutral makes it a better quality game.

And I think most people are now more aware of this than ever before.

In the pre-Grand Final era, almost every trophy, with the exception of the League Trophy, was decided on a knock-out basis. So there was very little to compare the Challenge Cup with. It just happened to be the biggest of several similar knock-out trophies because its final was at Wembley.

Now, after a decade of Grand Final epics, especially as this coincided with a troubled times for the Challenge Cup - nomadic shifts between venues, the pre-season experiment, several mismatched finals - people have a much more grounded view of which is the more exhilarating event.

My problem is, lover of the CC though I am, I have a bad feeling that the genii is now out of the bottle. The CC semis and final have the potential to be as exciting as they ever were, but they won't always be, and I can't ever see a time again when the CC is viewed by the majority of the fans as the game's most prestigious competition.