Third took on fourth in the Betfred Championship as the York City Knights hosted the Halifax Panthers in a crucial Round Twelve encounter as the home side looked to keep in touch with the top two and the Panthers looked to avoid a slip to sixth place in the table as mid-season approaches.

The Knights have won their last seven games with the Panthers having won their last six, something would have to give in what promised to be a close game between two for sides.

Halifax had been given a six-point start on the handicap coupon, but the bookies and pundits were expecting a close game between two evenly matched sides who should both make the end of season play-offs, if not be in with a real chance of promotion to Super League.

Super League returned to free-to-air television on Saturday lunchtime as Hull KR welcomed second-placed Catalan Dragons to Craven Park in front of the Channel 4 cameras.

KR entered the game having not lost at home since early March - the question was whether they could maintain that record against last year's Grand Finallists.

They had the perfect start when Ben Crooks outjumped two Catalan defenders to collect a Shaun Keny-Dowall kick on the try line and had to just fall over the line to score by posts.

Full-back Lachlan Coote had no difficulty converting that from in front of goal and the hosts led 6-0.

Both the Leeds Rhinos and Wakefield Trinity came into tonight’s game at Emerald Headingley knowing that it was a must win game at the bottom of the table with both sides looking to put some daylight between themselves and Toulouse Olympique XIII in the relegation spot.

Wakefield have lost their last six outings including last weekends humiliating loss to Toulouse, while the Rhinos returned to losing ways last time out against Salford after picking up wins in the two previous rounds.

Trinity were given an eight point start on the coupon, the Rhinos expected to bring home the points which could lift them up to ninth, should Salford lose their game against the Castleford Tigers.

Salford Red Devils opened their 2022 campaign with a 26-16 win over tonight's opponents Castleford at their Jungle ground, and had hopes of repeating that performance tonight.

The visitors had a dreadful start to the season: the loss to Salford started a run which saw them win just one of their opening half-dozen games.

But they overcame that and won five of the following six leading up to this match.

Their hosts have won fewer games, but have shown their ability in every round so far.

And their winger Ken Sio is the top try scorer in Super League at the half-way point of the season.

It would be lucky round thirteen for either the Warrington Wolves or St Helens, but the smart money was on St Helens extending their lead at the top of the table against a Warrington side who are struggling for any kind of consistency as new coach Daryl Powell continues to find his feet.

The visitors were unchanged from the side which beat Hull FC last time out while the Wolves welcomed back Gareth Widdop to the side who were thrashed by the Catalans Dragons in the south of France in the last round.

The home side had an eight-point start on the handicap coupon, but many pundits thought that the margin would be somewhat higher than that.

The Rugby Football League have paid tribute to Maurice Lindsay, whose death at the age of 81 has been announced by Wigan Warriors this morning.

Lindsay, a bookmaker by trade, was a leading force at Wigan RL during their most successful era in the British game when they establilshed themselves as the most feared side in the game.

During his tenure Wigan win eight Championships in a ten year period and nine Challenge Cups including the famous eight in a row between 1988 and 1995.

He left the club for a while to become Chief Executive of the Rugby Football League and proposed the start of the Super League and the switch to the summer schedule, the beginning of what many see as the start of the modern game.

It was fifth v second when Batley Bulldogs welcomed Leigh Centurions to slope at The Foxes Biscuits Stadium as round 11 of the Betfred Championship concluded in front of the Premier Sports cameras.

The Bulldogs entered the match unbeaten in their last five games, having drawn one game when they became the only team in the league to take a point off Featherstone back in March.

Leigh's only loss in the  past six weeks was to Super League club Hull KR in the sixth round of the Challenge Cup.

Leigh kicked off down the hill while the hosts had first use of the ball - faced with the challenge of carring it 100m up the field and up nine feet in altitude in the first half.

The Bulldogs were the first to make a mistake though, when Johnny Campbell knocked on trying to collect a high kick in the corner.

With London Broncos facing the Newcastle Thunder on Friday night and the Batley Bulldogs hosting Leigh Centurions in the Premier Sports televised game on Monday, there were five Betfred Championship fixtures played out on Sunday afternoon, all with traditional three o´clock kick-offs.

There was a Cumbria derby between Barrow and Workington while the third side from the northwest, Whitehaven, made the trip south to Widnes to face the Vikings.

Halifax Panthers were at home to the Sheffield Eagles and there was a West Yorkshire derby between Dewsbury and Featherstone, while the Bradford Bulls completed the rounds fixtures with a home game against the York City Knights.

Ninth faced tenth at the AJ Bell Stadium as the Salford Red Devils played hosts to a Leeds Rhinos side under their new coach, Rohan Smith, for the first time and boasting the return of several first team players after their injury lay-offs as they looked to register their third consecutive victory.

Paul Rowley’s side were looking to spoil the Rhinos party with a win which would lift them above their opponents as the scramble away from the bottom spot continued for both sides, with the bookies struggling to separate the sides, having made the Rhinos slight favourites.

It was a important sunny Saturday afternoon in Perpignan for both the Catalans Dragons and Warrington Wolves with the former knowing that a win would lift them into second spot in the table, and the latter hoping for a win by six or more points which would lift them above Hull KR and into the top half of the league.

The bookies had the home side as firm favourites and were giving the Wolves a ten-point start on the handicap coupon prior to the game, and with full back talisman, Sam Tomkins, back in the side, coupled with rushed travel arrangements for the Wolves, and the news that Charnley and King were missing, no one could blame the weighted odds.

If Friday the thirteenth didn´t give Hull FC a sense of foreboding, then meeting St Helens the week after they were eliminated from the Challenge Cup at the semi-final stage to archrivals Wigan Warriors would have filled them with fear as they braced themselves for the inevitable backlash.

Despite Saints needing the points to extend their lead at the top to two points, the bookies only gave the Airlie Birds a ten-point start in the handicap coupon, recognising that there was plenty of motivation for the visitors to regain the fourth spot that they gave up last night to the Giants and stay in touch with the top two.

There was no denying that it was an intriguing fixture on paper but always with a chance that Saints would run away with it as they looked to get last weekend out of their systems.

In a dress rehearsal for the Challenge Cup final, the two sides who win through their semi-finals last weekend were pitted against one another in Round Twelve of Super League as the Huddersfield Giants played hosts to the Wigan Warriors but with both sides making many changes to their line-ups, neither wanted to give any advantage to their opponents.

The two points were the main concern with a win for the Warriors putting them two points clear at the top of the table and should the Giants take the spoils then they would be up to fourth just three points adrift of the top two sides.

Both coaches made many changes from last weekend´s sides, the Giants without Cudjoe, McQueen, Yates, Hill and McGillvary amongst others while Wigan made a whole host of changes with Field, Marshall, Cust, Farrell, Bateman, and Smithies amongst those missing from the side who overcame Saints last weekend.

The Rugby Football League (RFL) and Super League Europe today announce a 12-year strategic partnership with IMG, a global leader in sports, events, media and fashion owned by Endeavor, to reimagine Rugby League and its competitions in the UK.

The agreement follows the recent decision for the RFL and Super League to realign and form a new joint venture company.

IMG has assembled a team of experts across its Media business and the Endeavor network to work with the newly combined entity on strategically repositioning the sport to maximise its commercial potential for long-term growth, build deeper relationships with fans and attract new audiences.

Featherstone Rovers awaited the winners of the second AB Sundecks 1895 Cup game between the Sheffield Eagles and Leigh Centurions although the bookies, pundits, and most supporters believed that there could only be one winner.

The Eagles were given an almost unprecedented thirty-four-point start on the handicap coupon as they looked to overcome a six-place difference in the league table and pull off a miracle result and get themselves a trip to London.

But Mark Aston loves to be an underdog, and Adrian Lam wouldn´t take the challenge lightly.

A place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on the 28^th May was up for grabs as Barrow Raiders hosted Featherstone Rovers in the first semi-final of the AB Sundecks 1895 Cup in wall to wall sunshine on the Cumbria coast.

Featherstone are currently sat at the top of the Championship and remain unbeaten in the league in 2022 while their opponents, who have performed far better than most pundits would have predicted, are currently in sixth spot.

Barrow would be hoping for a better performance to the one that they put in when they were dominated by Featherstone in mid-April and went down by 58-6 in the game in West Yorkshire.

Few gave the home side any hope of springing a surprise against Brian McDermott´s superstars.

Just like the first semi-final, the second men´s game at Elland Road saw adjacent two sides thrown together for the second final spot as the Huddersfield Giants looked to secure their first final spot since 2009 with the hurdle in their way being a Hull KR side hoping that they could return for the first time since their heavy defeat in 2015.

Tony Smith´s main aim, before his departure from the Robins at the end of the season, is to get his side into finals and give themselves a chance of silverware.

Ian Watson´s sleeping Giants from Huddersfield also need to win some major silverware to end a drought and win their first Challenge Cup since 1953.

There was the potential for it to be another classic, but we were to be disappointed.

The luck of the draw threw together Super League´s top two sides in a semi-final encounter of the highest calibre as St Helens faced the Wigan Warriors for a place in the Challenge Cup final at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at the end of the month.

Saints won the Super League encounter earlier in the season on Good Friday, but this was the Challenge Cup, and you can never write off Wigan in the cup, even if the bookies had made Saints the clear favourites and given Wigan an eight-point start on the handicap coupon.

The bookies believed that Saints were a shoe-in for the first final berth, it would take a miracle for Wigan to progress.

The Women’s Challenge Cup Final, the first game of a superb Elland Road triple header, saw the top two female sides in the country up against one another as St Helens faced the Leeds Rhinos for the first silverware of the season.

The game was played out in front of the BBC TV cameras and shown live to the nation on BBC2 and what a great advert for the game, and specifically the women´s game it was.

Saints knocked the Rhinos out at the semi-final stage last season before going on to beat York in the final and the Rhinos were runners up to Saints in the Women´s Super League last season.

It really was a match between the two best and most successful sides in the Women´s game.

Two sides in the top half of the table met for the final game in round ten of the Betfred Championship as third placed York City Knights made a long Bank Holiday Monday trip across country to Cumbria to take on the Barrow Raiders who came into the game in sixth place but with a chance of closing the gap on the sides above them.

The smart money was on a City Knights win with the bookies giving Barrow a fourteen-point start on the handicap coupon, a strong expectation before kick-off that York would pick up their seventh win of the season.

Round Ten of the 2022 Betfred Championship saw plenty of tries as the sides continued their jostling for position as we head towards mid-season.

There were seven matches over four days with Leigh and Sheffield meeting on Friday night and the intriguing encounter between York and Barrow being chosen for the Monday evening game on Premier Sports.

On Saturday Newcastle played hosts to Halifax while the bulk of games were on Sunday afternoon with Batley at Workington, Widnes at Featherstone, Dewsbury at London and Bradford at Whitehaven.