Like the FA Cup in football, the Challenge Cup continues to struggle for crowds and television audiences, but just as if Manchester United had drawn Liverpool early, rugby league’s oldest competition has been invigorated by tomorrow teatime’s fourth-round encounter between Leeds Rhinos and St Helens at Headingley Carnegie.

Whichever team prevail, it would be hard to see past them triumphing in late summer at Wembley Stadium — in St Helens’s case for the fourth final in succession. They are not halfway to matching Wigan’s eight successive victories between 1988 and 1995, yet there are siren voices warning against a similar monopoly further diminishing the cup’s standing.

Leeds lifted the trophy most recently in the last final at the old Wembley in 1999 and their recent loss of the World Club Challenge title to Manly Sea Eagles has sharpened their appetite for a good run in the competition, with St Helens having edged them out in four of the past seven seasons.

History and St Helens’s record of having not lost in the cup since Hull beat them in the 2005 semi-finals, stack up in the visiting team’s favour, but Leeds’s stranglehold over their arch rivals in the past two Super League Grand Finals is an equally persuasive argument.

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The fact is that the two clubs are indisputably the dominant forces of the modern era, as the intensity of their recent league encounter emphasised, and it is going to take something exceptional from those following in their slipstream to prevent either of them triumphing at Wembley on August 29 and Old Trafford on October 10, when the prizes are dished out.

St Helens were deserved 26-18 winners at Knowsley Road last month, on a night when Leon Pryce tormented the Rhinos with his exceptional footwork. Since then, the England stand-off has been put on conditional bail while awaiting sentencing this month for his part in an assault case, to which he pleaded guilty in court.

That Pryce could be in jail by the time of the final, after a judge warned him that he was considering a custodial sentence, has prompted understandable indignation at the blessing from St Helens for him to continue playing and the RFL’s present position of standing idly by.

The League did intervene this week in referring the case of Ben Cockayne, of Hull Kingston Rovers, who was convicted of assault and given a suspended prison sentence, to its compliance unit, while the full back’s future is also being discussed by Rovers. His fellow defendant, Steve Hayward, who also received a suspended jail term, had his contract terminated yesterday by Castleford Tigers.

Pryce’s presence, unfortunately, will cast a shadow over the tie, for which St Helens are without the totemic presence of Sean Long, their scrum half, but welcome back the England pair of Paul Wellens and James Roby. Danny Buderus and Ryan Bailey are restored to the Leeds squad after injury.

“Of our current squad, only Keith Senior, with Sheffield, and Jamie Peacock, with Bradford, have tasted success in this competition,” Brian McClennan, the Leeds coach, said. “In comparison, they’ve had the remarkable achievement of three wins in a row. That shows to us how good it must be to win the cup and the way that St Helens have refused to give up their crown. That certainly makes us hungry to get a taste of that success.”

In tomorrow’s other televised tie, Bradford Bulls need to repeat their only league win of the season away to Catalans Dragons. The French side are also struggling and require a victory for their flagging esteem. Today’s cup programme features Harlequins hoping to avenge a 46-6 hiding last month by Huddersfield Giants at the Twickenham Stoop.