Jamie Peacock: St Helens v Castleford is Ladbrokes Challenge Cup star

Fresh from England’s cracking success over Samoa in Sydney, I’m turning my attention to this weekend’s Ladbrokes Challenge Cup action – and I can’t wait!

The headline tie is at Castleford

Castleford against St Helens is the standout tie of the round for me.

Cas are playing the most attractive style of rugby right now, but I reckon St Helens will really fancy this.

They’ve been up and down a bit in terms of performances this year, but I think they’ll be up for it this weekend.

Generally the Challenge Cup brings the more attractive and fluent style of rugby as it’s played in the summer months, so I think that can bring Saints right into this contest. It’s the plum draw and it should be a thriller.

I tipped up Castleford originally and even after seeing that sixth round draw I’m sticking with that horse! At home they’re just going to be a little too strong for St Helens.

Both sides had players involved with England last weekend, and after the fine win over Samoa, I expect they’ll have come back home absolutely buzzing – which will only add to the game this weekend!

I can’t believe Hull KR’s draw

For us at Hull KR we would have preferred a home game – we can take anyone at home – but away to Salford is a tough one – especially after just losing the Million Pound Game to them!

That game is still really raw for everyone at KR and when the draw came out I couldn’t believe it!

The guys are looking to play well and make amends. I still get people asking me about it in the street now!

But it should be a good game, there’s a lot of history there. We know Salford are a good club and a good side and they’re right up there in Super League.

We know it’ll be a difficult game, but we’ve just got to focus on our job and our task and not worry about them.

There’s an upset on the cards

I think this could be as far as Barrow and Swinton will get.  It’ll be a fantastic day out for the Barrow fans, and it will be the biggest game of their lives for some of the players!

It’s always great to play at Headingley but I think Leeds will have too much for them, and I expect a similar story for Swinton against Wigan.

They did unbelievably well to beat Huddersfield, but I think this is where their run stops.

The intriguing fixture though, and the one where we could see an upset is Widnes to win at Warrington.

Widnes had a great result against St Helens a few weeks ago, and there wasn’t much between them when they lost to Warrington in Super League, so I think this will be close.

I think Catalans will have too much when they play Hull FC, so I think if we’re looking for an upset, then we’re looking at Warrington versus Widnes.

Marathon man

Running the marathon was an incredible experience and the amount of support was amazing.

Running up Tower Bridge was the highlight for me. The sheer number of people and the noise they were making was amazing and something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I got myself a bit boxed in though as I was aiming to run it under four hours, so the last 5km was hard! But I went for it and managed 3 hours 55 minutes and 55 seconds.

We raised nearly £5,500 so far for Wheatfields Hospice which I’m really happy about.

And now I’m looking to do a marathon on each continent, so next up hopefully is Tokyo next year if I can get into that!

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