National League Cup

Northern Rail Cup
	Founded
	2002
	Nations
	England; Wales
	Number of Teams
	26
	Current Champions
	Salford City Reds

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The National League Cup is a rugby league competition for clubs in Great Britain's Co-operative Championship and Championship One, formerly known as the Rugby League National Leagues. (The one French club in the Championship, Toulouse Olympique, does not participate in the cup at present.) Since 2005, it has been sponsored by train operating company Northern Rail, and is thus known as the Northern Rail Cup.

[edit] History

The Trans-Pennine Cup was a short-lived competition for professional British rugby league clubs outside Super League. It was played for during the period in which all non-Super League professional clubs were grouped into a single competition, the Northern Ford Premiership.

As part of the redevelopment of the Northern Ford Premiership competition; the National League cup was first held in 2002. It was known as the Buddies Cup, after its sponsors, a soft drinks manufacturer. Eighteen teams took part divided into three groups of six (East, West and Central).

The Northern Ford Premiership was replaced by National Leagues One and Two in 2003. The competition was known as the Arriva Trains Cup after sponsors Arriva Trains Northern). The twenty National League teams were divided into four groups (North, East, West and Central) of five teams each, while in 2004 there were five groups (North, East, West, Pennine, Yorkshire) of four teams each.

Northern Rail became the competitions sponsors in 2005 and the name Northern Rail Cup was adopted. Four teams from the then National League Three also entered the competition. There were no cross-group games in the 2005 competition; each team therefore played only six games in the group stages, with the top team from each of the first five groups progressing to the quarter-final directly. The second-placed team in each of these groups, plus the top team from group six (the group of teams from National League 3) played an additional round to determine the remaining three spots in the quarter-finals.

For 2006 there were seven groups. Groups one to six comprised the 22 teams in National Leagues One and Two and the two southern National League Three teams, Hemel Stags and St Albans Centurions. There were four teams in each regional division. The top two teams from groups one to six and the best three third-placed teams qualified for the last sixteen knock out stage along with the winner of group seven. Group seven comprised northern National League Three teams that choose to enter, and included three teams: Bramley Buffaloes, Warrington Wizards and Dewsbury Celtic.

In 2007 the competition adopted a new points system: Win – three points; Draw – two points; Loss by 12 points or fewer - one point. [1]

In 2009, the Northern Rail Nines tournament was started. Teams not involved in the Northern Rail Cup Final will enter a rugby league nines event with the trophy and plate final to be played as curtain raisers to the Northern Rail Cup Final at Bloomfield Road.

[edit] Results

[edit] National League Cup

Year	Winner	Final Score	Runner-up	Final venue	Final crowd
2002	Huddersfield Giants	32 - 6	Hull Kingston Rovers	Chris Moyles Stadium, Featherstone	4,352
2003	Salford City Reds	36 - 19	Leigh Centurions	Spotland, Rochdale	6,486
2004	Leigh Centurions	42 - 14	Hull Kingston Rovers	Spotland, Rochdale	4,383
2005	Hull Kingston Rovers	18 - 16	Castleford Tigers	Bloomfield Road, Blackpool	9,400
2006	Leigh Centurions	22 - 18	Hull Kingston Rovers	Bloomfield Road, Blackpool	7,547
2007	Widnes Vikings	54 - 6	Whitehaven	Bloomfield Road, Blackpool	8,326
2008	Salford City Reds	60 - 0	Doncaster RLFC	Bloomfield Road, Blackpool	6,328
2009	Barrow Raiders		Widnes Vikings	Bloomfield Road, Blackpool