The 2014 Challenge Cup (also known as the Tetley's Challenge Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the 113th staging of the

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

tournament. The defending champions

Wigan Warriors The Wigan Warriors is an English professional rugby league club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester. The club competes in the Super League, the top tier of the British rugby league system. Formed in 1872, the club is a founding member of the Ru ...

were knocked out in the quarter finals 4 - 16 at home to the

Castleford Tigers The Castleford Tigers are a professional rugby league club in Castleford, West Yorkshire, England. They play their home games at Wheldon Road (currently known as the Mend-A-Hose Jungle for sponsorship reasons) and compete in the Super League, t ...

, who went on to make the final, but lost 10 - 23 to the

Leeds Rhinos The Leeds Rhinos are a professional rugby league club in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The club play their home games at Headingley Rugby Stadium, AMT Headingley Rugby Stadium and compete in the Super League, the top tier of British rugby lea ...

First round

The draw for the first round of the 2014 Challenge Cup was held on 8 January 2014 and broadcast live from the studios of

BBC Radio Humberside BBC Radio Humberside is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving the former county of Humberside which includes the unitary authorities of England, unitary authorities of East Riding of Yorkshire, Kingston upon Hull, North Lincolns ...

by current

Hull F.C. Hull Football Club, commonly referred to as Hull or Hull F.C., is a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Hull play their home games at the MKM Stadium and compete in Super League, the ...

prop forward A rugby league team consists of 13 players on the field, with 4 interchange players on the bench. Each of the 13 players is assigned a position, normally with a standardised number, which reflects their role in attack and defence, although playe ...

Chris Green and former player Shaun Briscoe. The first round took place on the weekend of 1 and 2 February 2014, although three fixtures did not take place until the following Saturday - 8 February 2014.

Second round

The draw for the second round took place on 6 February 2014 and was drawn by former

player

Kris Radlinski Kristian John Radlinski MBE (born 9 April 1976) is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played mainly as a . He is currently CEO of Wigan Warriors whom he played his entire professional career for, making over 300 appeara ...

and the owner of

Salford Red Devils The Salford Red Devils are a professional rugby league club in Salford, England. They play home games at Salford Community Stadium in Barton upon Irwell and compete in the Super League, the top tier of British rugby league system, British rugb ...

, Marwan Koukash.

Third round

The draw for the third round took place on 24 February 2014 and was made at the University of Gloucestershire's Park Campus in Cheltenham by the university's pro vice-chancellor Maxine Melling and Kevan Blackadder, the editor of the ''

Gloucestershire Echo ''Gloucestershire Echo'' is a local weekly newspaper based in Gloucester, England. Published every Thursday, it covers the areas of Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold and Tewkesbury. The newspaper is head ...

''. The third-round fixtures were drawn from two pools. Pool A comprised the 14

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

teams plus four Championship 1 teams drawn at random. From this pool two teams were drawn and awarded a bye into the fourth round, the two teams drawn were

Featherstone Rovers Featherstone Rovers are a professional rugby league club in Featherstone, West Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Post Office Road and currently compete in the Championship, the second tier of British rugby league. Featherstone ...

and

London Skolars The London Skolars are a rugby league club based at the White Hart Lane Community Sports Centre, New River Stadium in Wood Green, London Borough of Haringey, Haringey, North London. Founded in 1995, the club operated as a semi-professional team ...

. The need to award byes came from the decision by the French teams invited into the competition to withdraw at a late stage. The remaining five Championship 1 sides and the 11 winners of second-round matches formed Pool B. All the third round fixtures comprised a team from Pool A vs a team from Pool B. The team with home advantage was also determined randomly for each fixture.

Fourth round

The draw for the fourth round took take place at 3:45 pm on 18 March 2014 from Quay House, MediaCityUK, and was broadcast live on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, BBC Radio Manchester, BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Radio Humberside. The fourth round saw the entry of the 14 First Utility Super League clubs, including holders

, who joined the 16 winners of the third-round ties along with

and

, who received byes in the third round. The home teams were drawn by the Mayor of Wigan, Councillor Billy Rotherham; the away teams by David Barker, representing sponsors Tetley's. The fourth round of the Tetley's Challenge Cup was played over April 3–6.

Fifth round

The fifth round draw took place live on BBC TV after the end of the 4th round match between Huddersfield Giants and St Helens. Home teams were drawn by Alex Murphy and away teams by

Garry Schofield Garry Edward Schofield OBE (born 1 July 1965) is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s and 1990s, and is a member of the British Rugby League Hall of Fame. At the time of his retirement he was the most- ...

. Fixtures were played over the weekend of 26–27 April 2014. BBC TV broadcast the game between Leeds Rhinos and St Helens on Saturday 26 April.

Quarter-finals

The draw for the quarter-finals was held on Monday 28 April 2014 at 18:30 and televised on the

BBC News channel The BBC News channel is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel owned and operated by the BBC. The channel is based at and broadcasts from Broadcasting House in the West End of London from which it is anchored during ...

. The home teams were drawn by Jason Robinson and the away teams by

Paul Sculthorpe Paul Sculthorpe MBE (born 22 September 1977) is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played as a or forward in the 1990s and 2000s. He played for England and Great Britain at international level, as well as representing ...

. Ties were played between June 5–8, 2014.

Semi-finals

The draw for the semi-finals was held on Sunday 8 June 2014 following the Bradford/Warrington game, which was televised on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

. The draw was conducted by

Eorl Crabtree Eorl Crabtree (born 2 October 1982) is a British former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s. He played at representative level for England, and at club level in the Super League for the Huddersfield Giants, wh ...

and Brian Noble. The ties were played on the weekend of 9–10 August 2014. ----

Final

The final of the 2014 Challenge Cup took place on 23 August 2014 at

Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium, currently branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE Limited, EE for sponsorship reasons, is an association football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Sta ...

with the match kicking off at 15:00 BST. The match was shown live on BBC One. Leeds Rhinos won the game 23–10.

Teams

Castleford Tigers:

Luke Dorn Luke Dorn (born 2 July 1982) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played as a and in the NRL and the Super League in the 2000s and 2010s. He played for the Northern Eagles, Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles and the Sydne ...

; Kirk Dixon, Jake Webster,

Michael Shenton Michael Shenton (born 22 July 1986) is an English rugby league coach and former professional rugby league footballer who is currently the assistant coach for Wakefield Trinity in the RFL Championship. An England national rugby league team, Eng ...

Justin Carney Justin Robert Carney (born 19 June 1988) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played on the or as a . He played for Canberra Raiders and the Sydney Roosters in Australia, and Castleford Tigers, Salford Red Devils and ...

;

Marc Sneyd Marc Sneyd (born 9 February 1991) is an English professional rugby league footballer who plays as a for Warrington Wolves in the Super League and England at international level. He made over 160 Super League appearances for Hull F.C., where ...

Liam Finn Liam Mullane Finn (born 24 September 1983) is a New Zealand singer and musician. Born in Melbourne, Australia, he moved to New Zealand as a child. He is the son of musicians Sharon (Johnson) and Neil Finn. In 2020, he joined his father's band ...

; Andy Lynch, Daryl Clark, Craig Huby, Oliver Holmes, Weller Hauraki, Nathan Massey. Substitutes: Frankie Mariano,

Scott Wheeldon Scott Wheeldon (born ) is a former English professional rugby league footballer who played as a for Hull F.C., Hull KR, London Broncos, Castleford Tigers, Featherstone Rovers and Sheffield Eagles . Background Wheeldon was born in Kingston up ...

, Jamie Ellis,

Lee Jewitt Lee Jewitt (born 14 February 1987) is an English professional rugby league footballer who plays as a . He played for Wigan Warriors, Salford City Reds, Castleford Tigers and Hull Kingston Rovers in the Super League. He also played for the Wid ...

. Leeds Rhinos: Zak Hardaker; Tom Briscoe, Kallum Watkins, Joel Moon, Ryan Hall;

Kevin Sinfield Kevin Sinfield (born 12 September 1980) is an English rugby union coach, currently the skills and kicking coach for the England national rugby union team, England national team. He is a former professional rugby league player for Leeds Rhinos, ...

Danny McGuire Daniel Phillip McGuire (born 6 December 1982) is an English rugby league coach and former professional rugby league footballer who is the head coach of the Castleford Tigers in the Super League. He played as a or and spent the majority of h ...

;

Kylie Leuluai Kylie Leuluai (born 29 March 1978) is a New Zealand former professional rugby league footballer. A New Zealand Māori rugby league team, New Zealand Māori and Samoa international representative , he most notably played at club level for the Le ...

Rob Burrow Robert Geoffrey Burrow (26 September 1982 – 2 June 2024) was an English professional rugby league footballer who played as a scrum-half (rugby league), scrum-half or hooker (rugby league), hooker. Burrow spent his entire professional career ...

Jamie Peacock James Darryl Peacock MBE, (born 14 December 1977) is an English motivational speaker, leadership mentor and former professional rugby league footballer. Peacock began his career with Bradford Bulls in 1998, which also included a loan spell ...

, Brett Delaney, Carl Ablett,

Jamie Jones-Buchanan Jamie Daniel Peter Jones-Buchanan (born 1 August 1981) is a British rugby league coach and former professional player. He was briefly the interim head coach for Leeds in the Super League XXVII season. A forward, he played for his entire pr ...

. Substitutes: Paul Aiton, Ryan Bailey, Ian Kirke,

Liam Sutcliffe Liam Sutcliffe (born 25 November 1994) is an English professional rugby league footballer who plays in a variety of positions for the Huddersfield Giants in the Super league. He has previously played for Hull FC and Leeds Rhinos in the Super L ...

UK Broadcasting rights

The tournament was jointly televised by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

and

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

on the third of their five-year contracts. The BBC screened, live, one match from each of the fourth and fifth rounds, two from the quarter-finals, both semi-finals and the final. Sky screened the two quarter-final games not being shown by the BBC.

televised the other two quarter final matches live. The first was

Widnes Vikings The Widnes Vikings are an English rugby league club in Widnes, Cheshire, which competes in the RFL Championship, Betfred Championship. The club plays home matches at DCBL Stadium. Founded as Widnes Football Club, they are one of the original twe ...

and

Keighley Cougars The Keighley Cougars are a professional rugby league club from Keighley in West Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Cougar Park and compete in RFL League 1, League One, the third tier of British rugby league system, British rugby le ...

and the second was

and

Leigh Centurions The Leigh Leopards are a professional rugby league club based in Leigh, Greater Manchester, England. Leigh play homes games at Leigh Sports Village and compete in Super League, the top tier of British rugby league system, British rugby league. ...

External links

*
Challenge Cup
official website''

References

{{2014 in Rugby League Challenge Cup

Challenge Cup The Rugby Football League Challenge Cup, commonly known just as the Challenge Cup is a Single-elimination tournament, knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, it is the world's old ...

2014 in French rugby league 2014 in Welsh rugby league 2014 in Scottish sport