Elland Road to host Challenge Cup sixth round draw on Monday

The draw will be made by former Leeds and Castleford star Lee Crooks and the Royal Navy’s Ben Taylor, a social media poet also known as ‘Yorkshire Prose’.

Crooks played in Hull’s 18-9 Cup final replay win over Widnes at Elland Road in 1982 and Taylor was part of the Royal Navy team which reached the fourth round of this year’s competition before losing to Batley Bulldogs.

Elland Road will stage both semi-finals on Saturday, May 7, along with the Betfred Women’s Challenge Cup final.

Eleven Super League clubs, including Leeds Rhinos, Castleford Tigers and Wakefield Trinity, join the competition at the sixth round stage, on the weekend of March 25-27, but Toulouse Olympique have not entered.

At least one West Yorkshire Championship club will join them in the hat, with Batley playing host to Featherstone Rovers tomorrow (3pm).

The tie will be broadcast live on the Sportsman website.

Bulldogs face Rovers at home next week in the league and coach Craig Lingard described tomorrow as a “free hit”.

Featherstone, coached by two-time Cup winning coach Brian McDermott, are unbeaten in all competitions this season, but Lingard insisted Batley are happy to be underdogs.

He said: “We’re concentrating on the Cup game first.

“We are the underdogs and nobody’s expecting us to win.

“Everyone will write us off, but that’s how we like it.

“We perform best when our backs are against the wall – we are going to try and come out swinging.”

Rovers will go into the league game without Matty Wildie, who received a one-game penalty notice from the RFL’s match review panel on Thursday, following a grade B late hit on the passer in last week’s win over Halifax.