2017 County Championship Plate

2017 County Championship Plate
Countries	England
Date	6 May 2017 - 28 May 2017
Champions	Leicestershire (1st title)
Runners-up	Hampshire
Matches played	8
Tries scored	83 (average 10.375 per match)
Top point scorer	Callum Dacey (Leicestershire) 40
Top try scorer	Callum Dacey (Leicestershire) 8
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The 2017 County Championship Plate, also known as Bill Beaumont Cup Division 2, was the 16th version of the annual English rugby union, County Championship organised by the RFU for the tier 2 English counties. Each county drew its players from rugby union clubs from the third tier and below of the English rugby union league system (typically National League 1, National League 2 North or National League 2 South). The counties were divided into two regional pools (north/south) with four teams in each and the winners of each pool meeting in the final at Twickenham Stadium.

Due to changes to the County Championship format (more detail of this below) four new teams were added to the competition, with Hampshire (winners) and Staffordshire (runners up) coming up due to reaching the final of the 2016 County Championship Shield, while Warwickshire and Cumbria were also promoted by virtue of their performances in the competition during the past two seasons. The changes also meant that there were no teams relegated into the division.

Leicestershire and Hampshire won their respective groups to qualify for the Twickenham final, with Leicestershire being the more impressive with three easy victories. The first half of the final was fairly close with Leicestershire going in 8-0 up, but in the second half they added a further four tries to win their first ever Plate competition by a final score of 39-7. It was a well deserved win for Leicestershire who were by the far the strongest county in the Plate competition this season and it would be no surprise if they are in the top division in a couple of year's time.

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