The National League Cup is a rugby league competition for clubs in Great Britain's National Leagues. For the period 2005-7 it will be sponsored by train operating company Northern Rail, and will be known the Northern Rail Cup

In 2003 and 2004 the competition was known the Arriva Trains Cup (named for sponsors Arriva Trains Northern), whilst in 2002 (the first year of the competition) it was titled the Buddies Cup, after a soft drinks manufacturer.

Structure

The National League cup was first held in 2002 as was part of the redevelopment of the Northern Ford Premiership competition - 18 teams took part. The 2003 and 2004 competitions were for the 20 clubs in the new National Leagues One and Two. The 2005 competition will see more clubs, as four teams form National League Three are set to enter.

Each competition has featured an initial group stage, with groups based upon regions; In 2002 there were 3 goups of six (East, West and Central), in 2003 there were 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. Each club plays each other home and away, plus some cross group games to make a total of ten games before the top club from each group progresses to the knockout stages, plus lucky losers (this has been decided differently in different years).

Groups for 2005 season

• Group One: Barrow Raiders, Gateshead Thunder, Whitehaven, Workington Town
• Group Two: Chorley Lynx , Oldham, Rochdale Hornets , Swinton Lions .
• Group Three: Halifax, Hull Kingston Rover , London Skolars, Keighley Cougars
• Group Four: Castleford Tigers, Featherstone Rovers, Hunslet Hawks , York City Knights
• Group Five: Batley Bulldogs , Dewsbury Rams , Doncaster Dragons , Sheffield Eagles
• Group Six: Bradford Dudley Hill , Bramley Buffaloes , Hemel Hempstead Stags , Warrington Wizards .

There will be no cross-group games in the 2005 competition, each team will therefore play only six games in the group stages. The top team from each of the first five groups will progress 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), will play an additional round to determine the remaining three spots in the quarter-finals.

List of finals

See also

• Rugby League National Leagues
• Northern Ford Premiership
• Challenge Cup

External links

• results and tables from totalrl.com