2009 Challenge Cup

The 2009 Challenge Cup was the 108th staging of the most prestigious knock-out competition in rugby league. Teams from England, Scotland, Wales, France and Russia were included in the tournament. It began in January 2009.
Teams from the Co-operative Championship received byes into round three along with four teams from France, and the winner of the Russian Championship. Teams from the Super League enter in round four.
Defending champions St. Helens lost in the semi-final 14 – 24 to the Huddersfield Giants who went on to lose the final 16 – 25 to the Warrington Wolves.
For 2009, the early stages of the competition was revamped. As the competition has expanded, there was now a preliminary round before the first round, and teams were placed into two 'pools' for the preliminary, first and second rounds.

Pools

Pool A features 48 teams, made up as follows:

The 40 teams from the National Conference League
The winners of the five major BARLA Regional Leagues
The winners of the three major BARLA Regional Cup Competitions – Yorkshire, North West & Cumberland

Pool B features 16 teams, which is a mixed bag of Rugby League Conference teams, armed forces representative teams and University teams.

Preliminary round

Pool A

All matches were due to be played on 3–4 January, however, winter weather forced the postponement of most of these fixtures due to frozen pitches. The round is divided into two pools, with several teams receiving a bye to the First Round:

Tie no	Home team	Score	Away team
1 ^†	Eccles and Salford Juniors	6–22	Saddleworth Rangers
2 ^†	Egremont Rangers	14–8	Thornhill Trojans
3 ^†	Ovenden	22–20	Oulton Raiders
4	Skirlaugh	56–4	Heworth
5 ^†	Wath Brow Hornets	18–14	Millom
6	Siddal	30–12	Normanton Knights
7 ^†	Stanningley	16–18	Hull Dockers
8 ^†	Halifax Irish	10–22	Bradford Dudley Hill
9 ^†	Rochdale Mayfield	12–36	Leigh East
10	Halton Simms Cross	46–12	York Acorn
11 ^†	Ellenborough	4–20	Wigan St Patricks
12 ^†	Bank Quay Bulls	6–19	Queens
13 ^†	Oldham St Annes	16–30	Wigan St Judes
14 ^†	Widnes St Maries	22–8	Ince Rose Bridge
15	Shaw Cross Sharks	16–21	Castleford Lock Lane
16	Stanley Rangers	12–40	Leigh Miners Rangers

†: fixtures rearranged due to frozen pitches. New dates varied between teams, depending on clashes with league fixtures and weather.

Pool B

Fixtures played 17–18 January:

Tie no	Home team	Score	Away team
1	Bristol Sonics	8–52	Leeds Met Carnegie
2	University of Wales Institute	18–20	Valley Cougars
3	Loughborough University	26–16	Nottingham Outlaws
4	West London Sharks	10–22	The Army

Pool A Byes: West Hull, Thatto Heath Crusaders, Myton Warriors, Orchard Park and Greenwood, Eastmoor Dragons, East Hull, Sharlston Rovers, Kells, Hull Isberg, East Leeds, Pilkington Recs, West Bowling, Milford Marlins, Crossfields, Waterhead, Castleford Panthers
Pool B Byes: St Mary's University College, RAF, Warrington Wizards, Featherstone Lions, Hull University, Edinburgh Eagles, Northumbria University, Royal Navy

Round 1

All matches played on 24–25 January. The round was divided into two pools, with the teams that received a bye in the last round entering.

Pool A

†: fixtures rearranged for 31 January due to flooded pitches.

Pool B

Round 2

Draw hosted by Wath Brow Hornets on 27 January, as the winners of the Cumbrian derby in the first round. Matches were played 14–15 February.

Pool A

Tie no	Home team	Score	Away team
1	Wigan St Patricks	20–16	West Hull
2	Widnes St Maries	8–15	Queens
3	Wath Brow Hornets	40–22	Hull Dockers
4	Kells	31–22	Leigh Miners Rangers
5	Wigan St Judes	24–28	Pilkington Recs
6	Siddal	34–10	West Bowling
7	Sharlston Rovers	20–10	Leigh East
8	Saddleworth	20–16	Castleford Lock Lane

Pool B

Tie no	Home team	Score	Away team
1	Loughborough University	20–18	The Navy
2	Leeds Met Carnegie	20–6	Edinburgh Eagles
3	Featherstone Lions	12–30	The Army

Round 3

Draw was made live on BBC Radio Manchester on 17 February. All twenty Co-operative Championship teams were added into the competition in this round, as well as four teams from the French Elite One Championship, and winners of the 2008 Russian Championship, RC Lokomotiv Moscow. The matches were played on 7–8 March.

Tie no	Home team	Score	Away team
1	Siddal	6–10	Swinton Lions
2	York City Knights	50–10	Wigan St Patricks
3	Featherstone Rovers	94–2	The Army
4¹	Queens	A–A	Doncaster
5	Pilkington Recs	24–34	Batley Bulldogs
6	Barrow Raiders	44–12	Blackpool Panthers
7	Gateshead Thunder	42–38	Whitehaven
8	Workington Town	6–18	Lézignan Sangliers
9	Leigh Centurions	82–6	RC Lokomotiv Moscow
10	Oldham R.L.F.C.	26–8	Sharlston
11	Sheffield Eagles	22–6	Toulouse Olympique
12	Leeds Met Carnegie	24–38	Rochdale Hornets
13	Widnes Vikings	88–0	Saddleworth
14	Wath Brow Hornets	14–12	London Skolars
15	Keighley Cougars	30–24	Pia Donkeys
16²	Kells	12–22	Hunslet Hawks
17	Halifax	80–16	Loughborough University
18	Dewsbury Rams	18–6	AS Carcassonne

¹: Match was abandoned on 61st minute due to crowd trouble. Doncaster went through due to them being ahead at the time. The RFL upheld the decision after an investigation. It was the first time a rugby league game has been abandoned in England due to crowd trouble in over 70 years.
²: Match postponed due to waterlogged pitch.
Round 4

The draw for round 4 was made live on 9 March on BBC Radio 5 Live. The sixteen victorious Co-operative Championship teams from round 3 were joined by all fourteen Super League XIV teams, as well as Wath Brow Hornets, the competition's only amateur club remaining at this stage, and Lezignan, making this the Round of 32. From this point, no more teams were added to the competition.
All ties were played 3–5 April.

Average attendance: 4,270

Round 5

The sixteen teams remaining after Round 4 were randomly paired against each other, in a draw held at RAF Leeming on 7 April involving AVM Chris Davison, Director of the RAF Sports Board, and Barrie McDermott, former Leeds and Great Britain and Ireland player.
All matches were played on 9–10 May. The match between Gateshead Thunder and Oldham R.L.F.C. was due to be played at the Gateshead International Stadium, since Gateshead were the home team, however the match was rearranged to be played at the Darlington Arena due to a fixture clash between a playoff match for Gateshead F.C., who share the stadium with the rugby league side, and an athletics meeting. This was the first ever professional rugby league match to be held inside County Durham.
The first match of this round was a repeat of a Super League fixture only thirteen days earlier. Wakefield Trinity took the initial lead, scoring ten points in six minutes, before Wigan levelled the game by the 24th minute. An early drop goal by Danny Brough edged Wakefield ahead by one point before Wigan scored their third try to lead 11–16 going into half time, following a successful conversion by Pat Richards. Wakefield scored their only try of the second half after 51 minutes, before Wigan scored two more tries to win the game by a margin of eleven points.
Oldham also started off taking the initial lead before losing to the Gateshead Thunder. Tommy Goulden gave the visitors a lead of six points following a successful conversion, and this gave them a 4–6 lead at half time following a Gateshead try which was unsuccessfully converted. Four tries and three goals from Gateshead after the break handed them a twenty-two-point lead, and two tries and a goal from Oldham were not enough to restore the deficit. A final Gateshead try ended the game with a firm 18-point margin in favour of Gateshead.
The first game ever to be concluded via the golden point rule was played at The Jungle. Halifax earned a ten-point lead through a try and two goals, one of which a penalty. Castleford replied with a converted try, before Halifax kicked another penalty goal to lead 6–12. The home side again scored a try, which was converted, before Halifax kicked another penalty goal before half time. Halifax scored first with a try after the break, before Castleford scored another of their own. Another try for Halifax was countered with three Castleford tries, one of which was successfully converted to give them a 30–22 lead. Two converted Halifax tries put them into the lead by four points with ten minutes to play, but a try from Brent Sherwin on the 74th minute levelled the game at full-time. Sherwin also scored the drop goal three minutes into extra time to send Castleford through after an historic fixture.
Huddersfield won their early morning kick-off against Rochdale Hornets despite two late tries from the away side. Luke Robinson opened up the scoring on six minutes to score the first of five first-half tries for Huddersfield, to which Rochdale had no reply. Huddersfield scored again after 44 minutes to put themselves 32 points to nil ahead, before two converted Rochdale tries lowered the deficit to twenty points. Shaun Lunt finished the game off five minutes from full-time with a try that was successfully converted to provide himself with a hat-trick, and to give Huddersfield a comfortable win.
Like Oldham and Wakefield had done the day before, Featherstone Rovers took the initiative before losing to the opposition. Featherstone took a four-point lead thanks to a try which was unsuccessfully converted before Warrington scored twenty unanswered first-half points with four tries and two conversions. Chris Hicks converted his own try shortly after the break to put Warrington 4–26 into the lead before Featherstone replied with what was to be their final try. Warrington proceeded to run in five tries before full-time, all of which were converted by Hicks, to win the game by almost a half-century of points.
Salford City Reds had lost three of their previous matches prior to this round's fixture, but this did not stop eight Salford City Reds players touching down for tries as they delivered the widest winning margin of the round away to Batley. Eight tries and eight goals, seven of which made up John Wilshere's ten goal match tally, scored by Salford City Reds went unanswered as Batley went into half-time fighting a 48-point deficit. Two further converted tries from Salford City Reds, including Mark Henry's fourth try, came before Batley's only try of the afternoon, which was not converted. Luke Adamson touched down two minutes from full-time to give a winning margin of 62 in favour of Salford City Reds.
Of the four Co-operative Championship sides facing Super League opposition on the Sunday, Sheffield Eagles came closest to winning, with Hull Kingston Rovers having to regalvanise themselves to prevent a Sheffield come-from-behind victory. The Sheffield Eagles only scored one converted try in the first forty minutes compared to the Hull Kingston Rovers' four tries and three goals which had given them a sixteen-point advantage going into half time, but Sheffield struck back quickly after the break with a converted try in the 41st minute. Sheffield scored again fifteen minutes later with a converted try to put them only four points behind, before Shaun Briscoe went over the try-line and Michael Dobson converted to restore a ten-point advantage. Sheffield scored another try to lower the gap to four points again, but a late Rovers try in the 77th minute ended the game to advance them through to the quarterfinals instead of Sheffield.
In a repeat of the 2007 Challenge Cup Final, St. Helens overcame French opposition in the outfit of the Catalans Dragons to reach the quarterfinals and maintain their four-year unbeaten cup run. Two tries within ten minutes gave an eight-point advantage to the home side before Thomas Bosc kicked a penalty to reduce the lead to 8–2. Catalans scored a converted try in the 21st minute to level game, before two tries and a goal for St Helens meant an 18–8 half time scoreline. Catalans failed to score at all in the second half, whilst to the contrary, St Helens ran in four tries, two of which were scored by Paul Wellens. All of the second half tries were converted by Sean Long to give the home side a winning margin of 34 points.

Average attendance: 3,853