This was the 123rd Challenge Cup tournament. The chart on the right covers from 1961 to 2024, awarding six points for each winner and three for the losing finalist. It shows which teams in the modern day have been the most successful. Wigan is the most successful but St Helens and the Leeds Rhinos have also done pretty well. How the cup works is as the rounds progress, more teams are added. The better the ranking, the later a team joins the action. The quarter finals are the seventh round and that is where the information below commences for the 2024 edition.
Quarter finals: Last year's finalists were drawn to play each other, the Leigh Leopards defeated Hull KR in that fixture. The tables were turned in 2024, with a 26-14 triumph to KR. The Castleford Tigers were not expected to trouble the Wigan Warriors and that is how it transpired.
On the other side of the draw, The French based Catalan Dragons were favoured to take this out but were outplayed comprehensively, going down 6-34 to the Huddersfield Giants. St Helens would have fancied their chances against the Warrington Wolves but they too fell well short, 8-31 in this instance.
Semi finals: Wigan took on Hull KR and won with a convincing 38-6 scoreline. Warrington were not to be outdone, 46-10 victors over Huddersfield.
Final: A crowd of 65,000 made the trip down to Wembley Stadium in London to see if Warrington could win its first cup since 2019. Wigan hoped to repeat its 2022 success. As it turned out, the more fancied Warriors were too good for the Wolves, the latter toiled hard but struggled to fire on attack.
Wigan won the trophy eight times in a row from 1988, a feat that will surely never be repeated but twice in three years isn't a bad effort either. To watch the highlights, the video is below. Click on the red arrow and then - if you wish - you can expand the picture by clicking [ ] on the bottom extreme right or the YouTube name immediately to the left of that.
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