Challenge Cup romance returns but has RFL’s revamp backfired?

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It's the official start of the new Super League season this w/eekend, but it's not quite the same as you're used to. The path to rugby league's holy ground, Old Trafford, kicks off next Thursday when the premiers, Wigan, go head-to-head with Leigh in a tantalising derby. However, before that, all 12 top-flight clubs will be jumping into a revamped and re-jigged Challenge Cup earlier than usual.

In recent years, top-tier rugby league clubs have entered as late as round six. But this year, they're coming into the competition at round three after the governing body, the Rugby Football League, decided to shake things up by making sure all top-tier teams would be drawn away against lower-league teams. But it's fair to say the plan hasn't quite panned out as they'd hoped.

There are some cracking wins on the cards for the weekend. York, dreaming of reaching the Super League, will play in front of their biggest home crowd yet at Hull KR on Friday night, while on Sunday the League One side Midlands Hurricanes are going for the same at Salford in the same round. A real humdinger of a game is expected at East Yorkshire between the Championship side Bradford and Castleford.

But a third of the ties involving Super League clubs have either been swapped with home games for those teams or moved to neutral venues. The main reason? Some of those clubs will be playing against amateur or community clubs in round three, which means the venues they usually play at, such as Wests Warriors' home in Acton in west London, don't meet RFL standards for a match between professional teams.

The Wests Warriors will head to Headingley to face off against the Leeds Rhinos, a top-notch experience for the community club, who'll receive all expenses paid to visit one of the game's top teams. But it's not the most magic day Leeds would've liked, as they'll be playing at a ground where they've never played before.

“Fair dinkum, I don't know much about their setup but Headingley's a top stadium and it's as safe as houses,” said the Leeds coach, Brad Arthur, this week. “We just wanted it to be a safe environment for both teams.” The amateur clubs York Acorn and West Hull have had to shift their ties against Hull FC and St Helens to a neutral ground, with Hull KR's Craven Park and Featherstone's Millennium Stadium now hosting those ties.

The intentions were sound, but it's evident that it didn't quite pan out; an examination is already underway about how to prevent a repeat and give it another go in 2026.

“There have been some good results with the format, but it hasn't been spot on, so we'll take another look at it,” RL Commercial CEO Rhodri Jones tells the Guardian. “It's looking unlikely that round three will go ahead the week before the Super League in 2026 – we need a bit more flexibility, so the review of the early rounds is already underway.”

But the issues are more complicated than that. Take the Championship heavyweights Halifax, winners in 87. They drew Catalans at home this arvo but, with the game shifted to noon on Saturday for streaming purposes, plus the possibility of no away supporters coming from France, this doesn't represent the cash-making event they were promised.

Fair dinkum, they're nervous they'll cop a financial hit by opening up their stadium for a Super League team this weekend. With dosh outside the first division scarce to start with, that's a real concern. "Given the shared ticket take and the outdated costs pay formula, we need a crowd of at least 850 so we don't actually go backwards," their CEO, Damian Clayton, says.

“We actually lost a packet in the previous round against [the amateur club] Thatto Heath. I reckon it’s fair dinkum that the RFL came up with the idea to throw Super League clubs into the competition, but most of those matches have been tipped on their head and are now being played at the Super League clubs’ home turfs, which I think jacks up the odds against the little clubs.”

With semi-professional clubs worrying they can't afford to host matches – and at least one Championship team might have to follow Halifax's lead – we need a solution. The idea behind this overhaul has been widely accepted, even if the details haven't quite been nailed.

G'day, I reckon the idea behind the format change makes sense, and we're as right as rain with it," says Adrian Lam, the coach of the Leigh team. They're off to Cumbria to take on Workington on Friday arvo. "Fair dinkum, we'll give Workington a fair crack of the whip, so I've picked a pretty strong squad.

Is the most recent outing." For clubs like the Wests Warriors, their trip to Leeds will be a day to remember. However, in terms of getting a bigger crowd, it's a fair bet that more needs to be done to give rugby league's top league a real boost.