The Sportsman is proud to announce it will continue its ongoing coverage of the Betfred Challenge Cup by showing the key Third Round tie between Featherstone Rovers and Halifax Panthers live.
The all-Championship clash is one of the most anticipated matches of the round, and will be shown live on TheSportsman.com and The Sportsman’s dedicated rugby league YouTube channel. As always, it won’t cost you a single penny to watch live, as we strive to bring one of sport’s greatest cup competitions to a wider audience.
It should be a cracker too as top of the league Fev host a spirited Halifax Panthers side in a rematch of the Fourth Round tie from last season. Last year at the MBi Shay, Featherstone ran out 29-16 winners as they made it all the way to the Sixth Round, where they eventually fell to Catalans Dragons.
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“That's definitely the tie of the round, Featherstone against Halifax,” Adrian Morley stated on The Last Tackle. “Two big old famous clubs there, you know. Big Yorkshire Derby. And it's great that we're going to see a bit of footy. Let's hope there's a few ding-dongs in that game, I'm sure there will be. But you're right, you know, Hendo said before, it's great for the Challenge Cup, all these community amateur clubs get to represent their towns against the big boys as it were so I can't wait and you know there's always a bit of drama and magic in the Cup and this round will be no different I'm sure.”
Gareth Gale will look to continue his impressive start to the season as two of the Championship’s leading try scorers go head-to-head in what should be a blockbuster encounter. Gale has struck six times already this season for Fev, who sit top of the second tier with four wins from four so far.
Meanwhile, Halifax Panthers have won two and lost two but they do possess the not-so-secret weapon that is Lachlan Walmsley. He’s matched Gale try for try so far this term but Simon Grix’s men will travel to Post Office Road as underdogs.
As well as Gale, they’ll have to contend with the two top try scorers in the Betfred Championship. Chris Hankinson has been solid with the boot, scoring 36 points, while Riley Dean has struck 32 in what has been the perfect start to the season for Sean Long’s men.
However Featherstone look like the team to beat, according to Andrew Henderson who featured on The Last Tackle this week.
“They certainly do,” he said. “I think Sean Long and Leon Pryce are doing a tremendous job so far. You know they've come in and again, there's always a challenge when you bring a new coaching team, you know, new dynamic within an environment and you've got to take the hats off to those two boys.
“Yeah, they've got their team playing well. They've got them firing early in the season. The challenge for them is are they going to be able to maintain those standards and that momentum throughout the course of the season and be at their best come the business end? Because the reality is we're talking about Super League ambition which Featherstone have, they have to win the big dance at the end of the season and I think we've seen in previous years they've just maybe fallen off the horse a little bit at the back end.
“So that'll be the challenge for them. But at the moment they're looking exceptionally well. They're playing a very good attacking game that is scoring plenty of points. Defensively, I think they've had a couple of clean sheets as well. So yeah, they're looking good at the moment.”
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