2015–16 RFU Championship
| 2015–16 RFU Championship | |
|---|---|
| Countries |
 England Jersey
|
| Date | 4 September 2015 – May 2016 |
| Champions | Bristol Rugby |
| Runners-up | Doncaster Knights |
| Relegated | Moseley |
| Matches played | 138 |
| Attendance | 298,010 (average 2,159 per match) |
| Highest attendance | 16,084 Bristol Rugby v Doncaster Knights on 25 May 2016 |
| Lowest attendance | 310 Ealing Trailfinders v Nottingham Rugby on 28 November 2015 |
| Tries scored | 848 (average 6.145 per match) |
| Top point scorer |
 Gavin HensonBristol Rugby 193 points |
| Top try scorer |
 Paul GrantNottingham Rugby 19 tries |
|
← 2014–15
2016–17 →
|
|
The 2015–16 RFU Championship, known for sponsorship reasons as the Greene King IPA Championship, is the seventh season of the professionalised format of the RFU Championship, the second tier of the English rugby union league system run by the Rugby Football Union. It is contested by eleven English clubs and one from Jersey in the Channel Islands. This is the third year of the competition's sponsorship with Greene King Brewery, which runs until 2017. The twelve teams in the RFU Championship also compete in the British and Irish Cup, along with clubs from Ireland and Wales. Some matches in the RFU Championship are broadcast on Sky Sports.
Moseley are relegated into the 2016–17 National League 1 after finishing bottom of the table. After seven years of trying for promotion (five of which they actually topped the league stage including during this season), Bristol finally did it. In front of a divisional and club record crowd of 16,084, Bristol managed to gain promotion to the Aviva Premiership despite losing 32-34 to away side (and league stage runners up), Doncaster Knights, due to an emphatic first leg victory, to go up 60 - 47 on aggregate.
The Championship's structure has all the teams playing each other on a home and away basis. The play-off structure will remain the same as the previous year. The top four teams at the end of the home-and-way season qualify for the promotion play-offs which follow a 1 v 4, 2 v 3 system. The winners have to meet the RFU's Minimum Standards Criteria in order to be promoted to the Premiership. There is no promotion if grounds fail to meet the criteria. There are no relegation play-offs; the bottom team is automatically relegated. This would have been the last year of a 2012 funding agreement with the RFU, where each club would have been given a grant of £380,000. Following claims, by Championship teams, including Plymouth Albion, that the current arrangement was not enough to sustain professional clubs, the RFU increased the annual funding to over £500,000 per club in a new agreement which will last until 2020.
...
Wikipedia