The Women's Challenge Cup is a

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...

competition organised by the

Rugby Football League The Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league in England, and until 1995 for the whole British Isles. The name Rugby Football League previously also referred to the main league competition run by the organisa ...

. The competition started in 2012.

History

2012–2016: Foundations

The Women's Challenge Cup was set up in 2012 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 The Challenge Cup is a knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, with the exception of 1915–1919 and 1939–1940, due to World War I and World War II respectively. It involves a ...

. 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.

2017–present: Exposure

In 2018 the competition started to receive a much higher profile, with the final being broadcast live on the

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside ...

website. In 2019 bookmakers

Coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secre ...

agreed to sponsor the competition – in addition to their sponsorship of the men's

– 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 The 2019 Challenge Cup known as the Coral Challenge Cup for sponsorship reasons, is the 118th staging of the Challenge Cup, the main rugby league knockout tournament for teams in the Super League, the British National Leagues and a number of invit ...

at the

University of Bolton Stadium The University of Bolton Stadium is the home ground of Bolton Wanderers F.C. in Horwich, Greater Manchester, England. Opening in 1997, it was named the Reebok Stadium, after club sponsors Reebok. In 2014, Bolton Wanderers signed a naming rig ...

on 27 July 2019.

Finals

Results

Sponsorship

References

{{Women's Challenge Cup 2012 establishments in England Women's rugby league competitions in England National cup competitions RFL Women's Challenge Cup