Yorkshire Cup : Thu Oct 10, 2013 10:38 am  

The Yorkshire Cup was retired from the playing schedule in 1993 however if the RFL restructure goes with 2 teams of
12 and a simple 1 up 1 down format there will only be 22/23 regular season match weeks compared to 27 regular season match weeks in this years superleague so there could be a opportunity to reinstate this competition i think it would be a great idea it would give us more opportunity to play super league teams and it could help boost attendances (although i have no idea how well attended the competion was in the 80's and 90's)

There is 16 teams in Yorkshire so we could have a random draw with 4 rounds however my prefered option would be again 4 rounds but to seed the clubs from 1 to 16 based on the previous years league tables so Huddersfield will be seed 1 and York seed 16 and seeds 9 - 16 will have home ties against seeds 1 -8 either by a random draw or 16 v 1 15 v 2 etc

The Lancashire Cup could also be reintroduced and the winners of both cups could play in a war of the roses final

Any thoughts ?

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Thu Oct 10, 2013 10:49 am  

Not going to happen.

One of the reasons (if not the main reason) behind scrapping the County Cups was the fact that it made the game look regional which is a tag the RFL still has, despite Div 3 covering most of the country.

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Thu Oct 10, 2013 2:08 pm  

griff1998 wrote:

One of the reasons (if not the main reason) behind scrapping the County Cups was the fact that it made the game look regional which is a tag the RFL still has, despite Div 3 covering most of the country.

I agree

For me the sport in general does not generate enough money ie no super league sponsor etc and one reason for it is because the vast majority of clubs are from in and around the M62 or not far away from it and is not appealing to the masses, I would like to see the new clubs Hemel, Gloucester and oxford given a little more help/money (if possible) to promote the game to there local areas and lay down some solid foundations as they move forward and hopefully grow (no I don't mean shoving anyone in superleague for 3 years and watching them go belly up), only when the game becomes at least half national will more people want to sponsor/put money into the sport. So no I'm not in favor of bringing back the county cups as I think they would do more harm than good
Wasn't they a disaster anyway?

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Thu Oct 10, 2013 3:53 pm  

It was never that well attended anyway.

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Thu Oct 10, 2013 5:39 pm  

No, they weren't disastrous, that's going too far. But two of the rounds, quarters and semis, were always midweek, which didn't help. The up-side was that there were a lot of derbies in there.

Can we fill a four week space with a four round cup ? Well, 50% of the teams only play one game and 75% play no more than two, so probably not. Added to that, cups are going out of fashion for whatever reason - lazy season ticket holders, blow out scores, take your pick.

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:39 pm  

duggs413 wrote:

The Yorkshire Cup was retired from the playing schedule in 1993 however if the RFL restructure goes with 2 teams of
12 and a simple 1 up 1 down format there will only be 22/23 regular season match weeks compared to 27 regular season match weeks in this years superleague so there could be a opportunity to reinstate this competition i think it would be a great idea it would give us more opportunity to play super league teams and it could help boost attendances (although i have no idea how well attended the competion was in the 80's and 90's)

There is 16 teams in Yorkshire so we could have a random draw with 4 rounds however my prefered option would be again 4 rounds but to seed the clubs from 1 to 16 based on the previous years league tables so Huddersfield will be seed 1 and York seed 16 and seeds 9 - 16 will have home ties against seeds 1 -8 either by a random draw or 16 v 1 15 v 2 etc

The Lancashire Cup could also be reintroduced and the winners of both cups could play in a war of the roses final

Any thoughts ?

NO .

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:26 am  

charlie caroli wrote:

NO .

No, you've no thoughts ?

No surprise there, Charlie.

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Sun Oct 13, 2013 7:57 am  

Yorkshire Cup was ok. I can remember us beating Hull FC at Don Valley on a wonderful night, on the way to the final in 92/93. But the county cups were never big crowd pullers until the Quarters, Semis, & Final.
I always used to chuckle when the Cumbrian sides & Fulham were lumped into the Lancs Cup while Mansfield/Nottingham were put into the Yorkshire Cup. And as someone said earlier, the game now has other additional teams well outside the M62 corridor to re-introduce the County cups.

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:04 pm  

It's worth thinking about. The county cups could replace pre-season friendlies. Split them up into group stages to ensure everyone plays at least three matches, the big teams can play their reserve sides if they want. You've then got a few local derbies around Christmas time and even a possible cup final?

Re: Yorkshire Cup : Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:20 pm  

stevie snerklebox wrote:

Yorkshire Cup was ok. I can remember us beating Hull FC at Don Valley on a wonderful night, on the way to the final in 92/93. But the county cups were never big crowd pullers until the Quarters, Semis, & Final.

There was only one (and a bit) rounds that weren't quarters, semis or the final - and that was played at a weekend when crowds were quite good actually.