{"id":396116,"date":"2026-01-29T03:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T03:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/396116\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T03:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T03:05:13","slug":"womens-challenge-cup-holders-wigan-warriors-to-start-defence-at-featherstone-rovers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/396116\/","title":{"rendered":"Women&#8217;s Challenge Cup: Holders Wigan Warriors to start defence at Featherstone Rovers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Women&#8217;s Challenge Cup holders Wigan Warriors will begin the defence of their title away against Featherstone Rovers in this season&#8217;s competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They have been drawn in Group C against Rovers and Cardiff Demons and will kick off their campaign on Saturday, 4 April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Denis Betts&#8217; side <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-league\/articles\/c771ymgvljzo\" class=\"ssrcss-ckhpdl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">thrashed rivals St Helens 42-6<\/a> at Wembley in June to win the trophy for the first time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This year&#8217;s final will also take place at Wembley, as part of finals day with the men&#8217;s Challenge Cup final on Saturday, 30 May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Meanwhile, last year&#8217;s runners up St Helens have been drawn against Huddersfield Giants and Catalans Dragons in Group A.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Group B features two-time winners Leeds Rhinos, Leigh Leopards and London Broncos while Group D contains Barrow Raiders who will face York Valkyrie under the stewardship of former Great Britain international Leon Pryce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women&#8217;s Challenge Cup holders Wigan Warriors will begin the defence of their title away against Featherstone Rovers in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-396116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}