Challenge Cup Draws made

The draws for the Betfred Challenge Cup and Betfred Women’s Challenge Cup have been made live on BBC Sport this evening.

Wigan Warriors will face either Sheffield Eagles, West Bowling or Cutsyke Raiders away from home in the Challenge Cup Third Round whilst Wigan Warriors Women have been drawn into Group 4 and will face Barrow Raiders and London Broncos in the group stages.

The 2025 Betfred Women’s Challenge Cup will again begin with a group phase, this year involving the eight Betfred Women’s Super League teams plus four from the Championship – to be drawn into four seeded groups of three, with two teams from each group qualifying for the quarter finals.

Meanwhile the Betfred Challenge Cup has a new format which will see the 12 Betfred Super League clubs enter at an earlier stage, in the last 32 – again in a seeded draw, which guarantees that each of them will be drawn away to one of the 20 Second Round winners.

That means Super League clubs will now need to win four matches to reach Challenge Cup Finals Day at Wembley in June – and guarantees a range of David versus Goliath style ties in the Third Round along similar lines to Tamworth v Tottenham in football’s FA Cup.

As a result of the postponement of 14 of the 17 First Round ties scheduled for the weekend just gone, there will be 31 community teams with an involvement in Tuesday evening’s Third Round draw, in addition to 23 from Betfred Championship and League One.

The 20 Second Round ties have each been given a number in the order they were drawn in Goole before Christmas – for example, the winners of BBC Sport’s selected Second Round tie between London Broncos and Goole Vikings will be number 7.

The draw will begin with one ball being drawn to face each of the 12 Betfred Super League clubs – starting with Wakefield Trinity, who return to the elite in 2025 having won the Betfred Championship and the AB Sundecks 1895 Cup last season, and concluding with Wigan Warriors, the Betfred Super League and Challenge Cup holders.

The remaining eight balls will then be drawn in four more ties to complete the line-up of 16 ties for the Third Round, to be played on the weekend of February 7-9.

In the Betfred Women’s Challenge Cup draw, the teams were split into two pools, with last season’s top four in Pool two alongside eight teams from across the Super League and Northern Championship in Pool one.

The 12 teams will be drawn into four groups of three, and as in previous years the draw is seeded with one of last season’s top four teams – Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors, York Valkyrie and the Cup holders St Helens – in each group, alongside two teams selected from the remaining eight.

Tuesday 14 January 2025