THE team Warrington Wolves will face in the Challenge Cup third round will be confirmed today.

They know their first competitive fixture of the 2025 season will be against League One opposition, and they know it will be away from home, but the possibilities will now be narrowed down from two to one.

Whitehaven and Swinton Lions face off in the second round today for the right to host The Wire over the weekend of February 8-9, with their match in Cumbria kicking off at 3pm.

Both teams were relegated from the Championship last year, with Haven finishing second from bottom while Swinton lost 22-20 to Hunslet in a promotion-relegation play-off.

Haven look to rebuild after difficult 2024

The Cumbrian side are in a period of rebuilding after finishing 2024 in the midst of intense financial difficulties, with long-serving head coach Jonty Gorley resigning from his post.

Former St Helens prop Kyle Amor, who finished his career with a brief loan spell at The Wire having started it with Whitehaven, took over as interim head coach to finish the season but could not save them from relegation.

Anthony Murray has been appointed as their head coach for the 2025 season as they bid for an immediate return to the second tier.

Warrington have met Whitehaven three times in the Challenge Cup, with the last being a 46-2 fifth-round win at The Halliwell Jones Stadium back in May 2006. Current assistant coach Martin Gleeson was among the try-scorers that day.

Wire’s last trip to The Recreation Ground came in the 2004 quarter-finals, when two tries from Nathan Wood and further scores from Brent Grose, Ian Sibbit, Warren Stevens, Ben Westwood, John Wilshere and Paul Wood secured a 42-10 victory.

Whitehaven's Recreation Ground last hosted a Super League side when St Helens visited in the 2022 Challenge Cup (Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

Former Wire favourite in charge at Swinton

Swinton, too, are a team looking for an immediate return to the Championship and in order to do that, they have turned to a former Warrington Wolves favourite.

Prop Paul Wood, who made more than 300 appearances for The Wire between 1999 and 2014, has been appointed as the Lions’ new head coach for 2025.

Wood joins with the club having suffered its second relegation in recent years having dropped out of the second tier in 2021.

On that occasion, they were able to bounce back the following year and remained in the Championship until last year.

The most prominent current link between the two clubs is, of course, Wire’s star winger Matty Ashton, who first shot to prominence by scoring 30 tries for Swinton during the 2019 season before joining Warrington for the following year.

The two sides have recent Challenge Cup history having met in a truncated 2021 competition at the Lions’ Heywood Road home.

In a match that was played behind closed doors due to ongoing Covid restrictions, Warrington ran out 32-8 winners with Ashton among the scorers on his return alongside Toby King (twice), Blake Austin, Tom Lineham and Danny Walker.

There was also the 112-0 win Wolves recorded over Swinton at The Halliwell Jones Stadium in 2011 – a win that remains a club record to this day.

Former Wire favourite Paul Wood has been appointed as Swinton Lions' new head coach (Image: Mike Boden)