The Championship season is set to kick off in just under four weeks on February 4th when Barrow Raiders host Toulouse Olympique but what were the most attended games of the 2022 season?
The Super League highest attendances of the 2022 season saw the two St Helens and Wigan Warriors games take the top two spots and here’s the list of the top five most attended Championship games of the 2022 season.
5: Leigh Centurions vs Featherstone Rovers – 4,226
This round 15 game saw the top two face off against each other in a crucial game and as a result Leigh managed to record their highest attendance of the season with 4,226 fans packing into Leigh Sports Village. Those supporting Leigh that turned up were rewarded with a 32-12 victory courtesy of a Blake Ferguson brace before tempers flared late on with Krinan Inu seeing red for Leigh before Young Championship Player of the Year, Sam Eseh, also received his marching orders.
4: Featherstone Rovers vs Widnes Vikings – 4,317
Rovers feature again on this list and it’s during another game that the home support saw a brilliant victory. Whilst the victory for Leigh in slot number five was conclusive it was more the significance of the victory in going top of the table that made it special. As for this round 10 game between Rovers and Widnes it was more a demolition job for the home side as Featherstone ran out 74-6 victors with a Luke Briscoe hattrick and braces from the likes of Craig Hall, Morgan Smith and Jack Bussey as a dominant Rovers ran in 13 tries.
3: Featherstone Rovers vs Leigh Centurions – 4,562
Featherstone feature on this list for the third time and it’s the second time this matchup features with the week two clash between the eventual second and first place teams in the division seeing over 4,500 pack into the Millennium Stadium. Fortunately for Featherstone this game went better than the second with Rovers securing a 28-6 victory. Running out to a 22-0 lead courtesy of tries from Luke Briscoe, Morgan Smith, Craig Hall and John Davies the Centurions managed a Nene Macdonald consolation before an 80th minute Brandon Pickersgill try finished off what looked like the start of a Rovers title charge.
2: Bradford Bulls vs Leigh Centurions – 4,654
The first time that Odsal features on this list and that makes sense given that Bradford had an incredibly poor season by their standards, however the fans came out in force to support their side against the league leaders Leigh during this round 17 clash. In spite of their brilliant home support the Bulls got bullied as they lost 56-6 with this game marking the second of three games during a five week period where Bradford would ship 50 points. Krisnan Inu would score half of the points with a hattrick and eight conversions in this rout.
1: Bradford Bulls vs Halifax Panthers – 5,821
One of the most anticipated games heading into the season and this round eight game fulfilled it’s promise with almost 6,000 packing into Odsal and the game even delivered as well with Halifax edging out Bradford 20-17. The Bulls were leading 17-8 with just under 20 minutes to go but two converted tries in the 64th and 75th minutes saw the Panthers to victory in a brilliant game. Having lost four of their first five games Halifax went from strength to strength with this particular win being the third in an eight game streak that eventually saw them finish third, whilst Bradford themselves failed to put three wins together at any point and finished ninth.
