Rivals kept apart

12 April 2012

Fierce rivals St Helens and Wigan have avoided each other in the draw for the Carnegie Challenge Cup semi-finals.

Holders and Super League champions Saints will take on Bradford for a place in the first final at the new Wembley while 17-times winners Wigan face Catalans Dragons.

The matches will be played on the weekend of July 28-29 with venues to be announced in due course.

The draw throws up the possibility of a repeat of the 2002 and 2004 finals, played at Murrayfield and the Millennium Stadium respectively, the former won by Wigan and the latter by Saints.

Wigan won the cup 15 times at the old Wembley, including the first at the ground in 1929 and eight in succession from 1988 to 1995.

Brian Noble's side will now be favourites to reach a 28th final after being paired with first-time semi-finalists Catalans, but the French will not be there to make up the numbers.

The Dragons have shown improvement in their second Super League season and reached the last four with a hard-fought 26-23 success over 2005 winners Hull on Sunday.

Saints and Bradford have a strong cup rivalry having met three times in the final in the summer era, although the Merseysiders came out on top each time in 1996, 1997 and 2001.

Saints, 10-times winners, booked their place in the semis with victory over Warrington while the Bulls, bidding for a seventh cup victory, crushed last year's runners-up Huddersfield. Wigan overcame Harlequins.

The Challenge Cup final was last played at Wembley in 1999 when Leeds beat London Broncos in front of a crowd of 73,242.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in