2000-01 National Division Three South

2000-01 National Division Three South
Countries	England
Champions	Plymouth
Runners-up	Launceston (not promoted)
Relegated	Cheltenham, Basingstoke, Weston-super-Mare
Attendance	64,715 (average 573 per match)
Highest attendance	3,000 Plymouth Albion at home to Launceston on 31 March 2001
Lowest attendance	100 Tabard at home to Reading on 25 November 2000
Top point scorer	Nat Saumi Penzance & Newlyn 352 points
Top try scorer	Victor Olonga Penzance & Newlyn 20 tries
← 1999-00 2001-02 →

The 2000-01 National Division Three South was the second season (fourteenth overall) of the fourth division (south) of the English domestic rugby union competition using the name National Division Three South. New teams to the division included Reading and Blackheath who were relegated from the 1999-00 Jewson National League One while promoted teams included Basingstoke and Launceston, champions of London Division 1 and South West Division 1 respectively. The league system was 2 points for a win and 1 point for a draw. The promotion system was changed for this season with a playoff system being introduced. The champions of both National Division Three South and National Division Three North would automatically go up but the runners up of these two divisions would meet each other in a one off match (at the home ground of the side with the superior league record) to see who would claim the third and final promotion place to National Division Two.

Plymouth Albion finished the season as champions by winning an incredible 26 games out of 26 to gain promotion to the 2001–02 National Division Two with runners up Launceston 11 points behind. It was an excellent season for newly promoted Launceston but they were unable to top it with promotion, losing 40 – 23 away to the 2000-01 National Division Three North runners up Sedgley Park. It was a great season for south-west based clubs in the division with all four sides occupying the top five league places and the twelve derby matches between the sides had over 21,000 spectators attending in total. At the other end of the table, Cheltenham, Basingstoke, Weston-super-Mare and Reading were the sides to be relegated with all sides being fairly competitive across the course of the season but not having quite enough to keep safe. Cheltenham and Weston-super-Mare would drop to the South West Division 1 for the following season while Basingstoke would make an instant return to London Division 1.

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