Cup earns praise to offer hope of wider inclusion

Bradford Bulls are the competition’s inaugural victors after beating Batley 14-12 in Sunday’s enthralling Mount Pleasant final.

Formed essentially to help create more meaningful pre-season friendlies, the re-invented Yorkshire Cup included fellow Championship clubs Dewsbury Rams, Featherstone Rovers, York City Knights and Halifax plus League One Hunslet and National Conference League champions Hunslet Club Parkside.

Played over three successive weekends it has generated interest and earned plenty of plaudits.

Of course the original Yorkshire Cup, which ran from 1905 to 1992, included all clubs from the county, something the present incarnation does not.

However, Nicholas – who helped form the competition with like-minded club chairmen – has not ruled out increasing the number of entrants in 2020 and potentially seeing if the likes of Leeds Rhinos, Castleford Tigers and Hull FC want to participate in some form.

“From our perspective at Batley we’re delighted with how it went,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

“It has given us some great games of rugby and people seem taken with the concept.

“We haven’t done a debriefing with all the clubs yet or a financial reconciliation, but as far as it goes we think it’s okay financially.

“We’re satisfied with Sunday’s gate (2,278), but will wait for that debrief to see where we went well, not so well and where we can go in the future.

“We’ve got eight clubs in there at the moment and potentially we could expand it and go up to 16, but we’ll have to see.