The cup certainly isn’t about ticket prices IMO and that idea is exactly how I would be starting to try and make a change. In football the smaller clubs want a day out at Old Trafford, Anfield etc but I don’t think going to a quarter full DW stadium, Haliwell Jones etc is the same draw for Rugby Leagues lower league clubs.

I like the double header semi finals and I think that’s a big step in the right direction. We’ll hopefully see 25-30k plus at Elland Road this year and it feels like a good event. Add in a round d where Superleague Clubs go to lower league clubs and I think we’ll have taken a couple of positive steps.

The gap between the two divisions doesn't help. There are plenty of shocks in football, but in RL they are usually walkovers.

Personally, I couldn't think of much worse than going away to a championship team. Away at Barrow or Whitehaven with a good % chance of a dog being on the pitch.

The CC is only good when you win it, for the rest of the time it's an unwelcome distraction imo.

I don't mean this as an insult, in fact the total opposite but you probably sum up the issue the cup faces then if that's your attitude. If people see the cup as a distraction and the focus has gone that much towards Superleague, maybe it's a losing battle. I absolutely love the Grand Final and the only way you used to get the feeling of being involved in a winner takes all game like that was to be in a cup final but maybe now people just see it as second rate and can only really get a buzz from a final.

I love trips to grounds we don't usually get to visit but then I like dogs

It's all opinion I suppose, I must admit I still remember going to these lower league grounds on a midweek night for a JPS/Regal Trophy or Lancashire Cup match. I can still remember the Bramley away Challenge Cup match where we were lucky to scrape a draw (10-10 iirc?) 37 years after it was played. Similarly a cup game over at Workington where Nick Du Toit booted the ball in the air the highest and hardest I've ever seen.

Yet ask me about some Wire cup game from a couple of years ago and it's impossible as it's faded into obscurity.

Yeah 100%, I guess. For me the league is the be all and end all. I want to see us be champions not CC winners. Both would be even better, but it's a tough ask & I'd always want the GF 1st.

As a side note, and well OT, but I'd be happy for us to have an A team and go and watch them play in the lower leagues. I just don't want to see guys like Tommy get banned or KPP get injured when we've got Saints on Good Friday. That's the big game, especially with our recent performance in that fixture.

Whilst some fans are price sensitive and there is an argument for reducing tickets by X to increase Y number of fans, the bigger issue is the overall pool of fans of the sport and individual clubs.

Football doesn't struggle and they have astronomical prices in comparison.

We should focus on growing the sport as a whole and growing our fanbase, those ticket prices aren't really the issue.

Growing up in the 8 in a row, the cup is massive for me.

I don't think the sport can afford the Challenge Cup to fade away into obscurity - its the only competition shown live on the BBC and still attracts the biggest (or 2nd biggest) crowd we have all year in the final.

I agree. Weve already lost two cup competitions decades ago, we can't let the Challenge Cup go as well.

I like the idea of sending SL teams to lower league grounds.

But knowing our luck, we'd get Leigh.

Or Leeds