| Women's Challenge Cup | |
| Current Season: | 2024 Women's Challenge Cup |
| Pixels: | 300 |
| Sport: | Rugby league |
| Founded: | 2012 |
| Inaugural: | 2012 |
| Country: | England Wales |
| Championtag: | Winners |
| Champion: | St. Helens |
| Season: | 2024 |
| Most Champs: | St Helens |
| Count: | 8 |
| Tv: | BBC |
| Website: | Women's Challenge Cup |
| Related Comps: | Women's Super League Women's Super League South Championship League 1 |
The Women's Challenge Cup is a rugby league knockout competition organised by the Rugby Football League. The competition started in 2012.
The Women's Challenge Cup was set up in 2012[1] to run alongside the men's competition to give women's rugby teams more competitive games and to give the sport a bigger profile by attaching it to the Challenge Cup. Most teams in the first few years were community clubs and had no links to professional men's clubs. In 2014 the RFL set up an amateur league for the women's game, to help more women's teams get regular game time.[2]
In 2018 the competition started to receive a much higher profile, with the final being broadcast live on the BBC Sport website.[2] [3] In 2019 bookmakers Coral agreed to sponsor the competition – in addition to their sponsorship of the men's Challenge Cup – and it was also announced that the final of the 2019 Cup would be played as part of a triple-header with the semi-finals of the men's 2019 Challenge Cup at the University of Bolton Stadium on 27 July 2019.[2] [4] The 2019 competition also saw the introduction of a new trophy commissioned by the RFL.[2] [5] In 2020, the competition was suspended after the first round and later cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the 2021 competition, entry was restricted to the ten teams in the Super League.[6] The following year the competition expanded to 16 teams (12 Super League, three Championship and one Super League South) and a group stage was introduced with the top two teams from the four groups advancing to the quarter-final stage.[7]
| Winning team | Score | Losing team | Venue | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Featherstone Rovers | 46–0 | Bradford Thunderbirds | Crown Flatt | [8] | |
| 2013 | Thatto Heath Crusaders | 54–12 | Bradford Thunderbirds | Mount Pleasant | [9] | |
| 2014 | Thatto Heath Crusaders | 32–24 | Bradford Thunderbirds | Crown Flatt | [10] [11] | |
| 2015 | Thatto Heath Crusaders | 22–6 | Featherstone Rovers | Odsal Stadium | [12] [13] | |
| 2016 | Thatto Heath Crusaders | 62–6 | Leigh Miners Rangers | [14] | ||
| 2017 | Bradford Bulls | 50–16 | Featherstone Rovers | Heworth ARLFC | [15] | |
| 2018 | Leeds Rhinos | 20–14 | Castleford Tigers | Halliwell Jones Stadium | [16] | |
| 2019 | Leeds Rhinos | 16–10 | Castleford Tigers | University of Bolton Stadium | [17] | |
| 2020 | [18] [19] | |||||
| 2021 | St. Helens | 34–6 | York City Knights | Leigh Sports Village | [20] | |
| 2022 | St. Helens | 18–8 | Leeds Rhinos | Elland Road | [21] | |
| 2023 | St. Helens | 22–8 | Leeds Rhinos | Wembley Stadium | [22] | |
| 2024 | St. Helens | 22–0 | Leeds Rhinos | Wembley Stadium | [23] |
| Club | Wins | Runners up | Winners | Runners up | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | St. Helens | 8 | 0 | 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 | |
| 2 | Leeds Rhinos | 2 | 3 | 2018, 2019 | 2022, 2023, 2024 |
| 3 | Bradford Bulls | 1 | 3 | 2017 | 2012, 2013, 2014 |
| 4 | Featherstone Rovers | 1 | 2 | 2012 | 2015, 2017 |
| 5 | Castleford Tigers | 0 | 2 | 2018, 2019 | |
| 6 | Leigh Miners Rangers | 0 | 1 | 2016 | |
| York City Knights | 0 | 1 | 2021 |
Between 2012 and 2019 teams that were knocked out of the cup in the early rounds went on to compete in the Challenge Shield competition.[24] In 2021, with entry to the Challenge Cup restricted, the Rugby Football League launched a Women's League Cup for teams outside of the Super League and Championship.[25] In 2022, the League Cup was opened to teams from the Championship, with the two sides that did not progress from the group stage of the Challenge Cup entering the League Cup at the quarter-final round.[26]
| Winning team | Score | Losing team | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Widnes Vikings | 40–10 | Stanningley | [27] | |
| 2013 | Normanton Knights | 34–14 | Featherstone Rovers | [28] | |
| 2014 | Featherstone Rovers | 64–14 | Stanningley | [29] | |
| 2015 | |||||
| 2016 | Thatto Heath Reserves | 62–6 | Whitley Bay Barbarians | [30] | |
| 2017 | York City Knights | 26–24 | Army RL | [31] | |
| 2018 | Bradford Bulls | 44–16 | Stanningley | [32] | |
| 2019 | Army RL | 40–4 | York City Knights | [33] |
| Year | Sponsor | Name | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019–2020[34] | Coral | Coral Women's Challenge Cup | |
| 2021–present[35] | Betfred Women's Challenge Cup |