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West of England Rugby League

West of England Rugby League
Country  England
Founded 2011
Number of teams 5
Level on pyramid 5
Promotion to Conference League South
Domestic cup(s) Challenge Cup
Current champions Bath & Wiltshire Romans

The West of England Rugby League also known as the West of England Men's League is a rugby league competition for teams in Somerset up through Bristol and Gloucester to Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. It was formerly part of the Rugby League Conference. It is the 5th tier in the Rugby League pyramid

The Rugby League Conference was founded in 1997 as the Southern Conference, a 10-team pilot league for teams in the South of England and the English Midlands.

The conference made the leap from 30 to 52 teams in 2003 and a South West Division appeared for the first time. It disappeared in 2004 as South West teams took part in the Western Division and Cardiff Demons joined the newly created Welsh Division.

The Premier divisions saw a change in boundaries leaving the North Premier division covering a larger area to give the English Midlands clubs their own premier division without having to face heartland teams, this left the West Midlands division with too few teams to run, resulting in a merged West Midlands and South West Division.

After a campaign by the RFL to form new clubs in the South West, a new South West division was created in 2007 for teams from the West Country. By 2010, there were enough teams to have a South West conference split into two pools.

For the 2011 season, there was a new RLC West of England alongside the RLC South West. The initial idea was that the two leagues would compete side by side with play-offs at the end of the season to decide an overall South West champion but that never happened.

The initial line-up for the 2014 season is:-

RLC West Midlands and South West: 2006 RLC West of England: 2011

The first South West County Championship took place on the May Bank Holiday weekend in 2011 at Aretians RFC in Bristol.


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