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Kingstone Press Championship 2015
League	Championship
Duration	23 Rounds (Followed by a league split into "Super 8's" for 7 more fixtures.)
Teams	12
Highest attendance	7,439 Leigh Centurions Vs Bradford Bulls
Lowest attendance	300 London Broncos Vs Workington Town
Broadcast partners	Sky Sports
2015 Season
Champions	Leigh Centurions
Championship Shield	Featherstone Rovers
Promotion and relegation
Relegated to League 1	Hunslet Hawks Doncaster
← 20142016 →

The 2015 Rugby Football League Championship, known as the Kingstone Press Championship for sponsorship reasons, was a professional rugby league football competition played in the UK, one tier below the Super League.

The 2015 Championship featured twelve teams, who played each other twice in the regular season, once at home and once away, totaling 22 games. The 2015 season also saw for the first time the Summer Bash Weekend, which was played at Bloomfield Road, Blackpool and created an additional round of fixtures. After 23 rounds in both the Championship and the Super League, the two divisions of twelve were split into the Rugby League Super 8s.

Leigh Centurions were the league leaders after 23 rounds and were thus deemed Champions for the 2015 season, while Hunslet Hawks and Doncaster were relegated following the culmination of the Super 8s.

Teams

The competition featured 12 teams, as opposed to the 14 seen in the previous year. The teams consisted of nine of the 14 teams from 2014, the Play-off winner of the 2014 Championship 1 season, which was Hunslet Hawks, and the two sides relegated from 2014 Super League, Bradford Bulls and London Broncos. Keighley Cougars, North Wales Crusaders, Rochdale Hornets, Swinton Lions, and Barrow Raiders who finished in the bottom five in 2015 were relegated into League One for 2015.

	Team & Current Season	Stadium	Capacity	2015 Average Crowd	Location
	Batley Bulldogs	loverugbyleague.com Stadium	6,000	1,605	Batley, West Yorkshire
	Bradford Bulls	Odsal Stadium	27,000	4,360	Bradford, West Yorkshire
	Dewsbury Rams	Tetley's Stadium	5,100	1,689	Dewsbury, West Yorkshire
	Doncaster	Keepmoat Stadium	15,231	1,595	Doncaster, South Yorkshire
	Featherstone Rovers	Bigfellas Stadium	6,750	2,277	Featherstone, West Yorkshire
	Halifax	The Shay Stadium	6,561	2,151	Halifax, West Yorkshire
	Hunslet Hawks	South Leeds Stadium	4,000	1,437	Leeds, West Yorkshire
	Leigh Centurions	Leigh Sports Village	12,700	3,177	Leigh, Greater Manchester
	London Broncos	The Hive Stadium	5,176	1,381	Canons Park, London
	Sheffield Eagles	Owlerton Stadium	4,000	1,640	Sheffield, South Yorkshire
	Whitehaven	Recreation Ground	7,500	1,527	Whitehaven, Cumbria
	Workington Town	Derwent Park	10,000	1,448	Workington, Cumbria

Season standings

The regular league season saw the 12 teams play each other twice (one home, one away) over 24 matches. The top four teams at the end of the regular season qualified for "The Qualifiers", while the other eight teams contested the "Championship Shield".

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Qualification
1	Leigh Centurions	23	21	1	1	972	343	+629	43	The Qualifiers
2	Bradford Bulls	23	18	1	4	828	387	+441	37
3	Sheffield Eagles	23	17	0	6	586	451	+135	34
4	Halifax	23	16	0	7	646	377	+269	32
5	Featherstone Rovers	23	13	0	10	633	565	+68	26	Championship Shield
6	Dewsbury Rams	23	12	1	10	490	461	+29	25
7	London Broncos	23	12	0	11	538	510	+28	24
8	Workington Town	23	7	1	15	379	631	−252	15
9	Batley Bulldogs	23	7	0	16	421	539	−118	14
10	Whitehaven	23	7	0	16	418	671	−253	14
11	Hunslet Hawks	23	5	0	18	362	769	−407	10
12	Doncaster	23	1	0	22	282	851	−569	2

• The Qualifiers

The Qualifiers Super 8's saw the bottom 4 teams from Super League table join the top 4 teams from the Championship. The points totals are reset to 0 and each team plays 7 games each, playing every other team once. After 7 games each the teams finishing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd will gain qualification to the 2016 Super League season. The teams finishing 4th and 5th will play in the "Million Pound Game" at the home of the 4th place team which will earn the winner a place in the 2016 Super League; the loser, along with teams finishing 6th, 7th and 8th, will be relegated to the Championship.

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Qualification
1	Hull Kingston Rovers	7	7	0	0	234	118	+116	14	2016 Super League
2	Widnes Vikings	7	5	0	2	232	70	+162	10
3	Salford City Reds	7	5	0	2	239	203	+36	10
4	Wakefield Trinity Wildcats (W)	7	3	0	4	153	170	−17	6	Million Pound Game
5	Bradford Bulls	7	3	0	4	167	240	−73	6
6	Halifax	7	2	0	5	162	186	−24	4	2016 Championship
7	Sheffield Eagles	7	2	0	5	152	267	−115	4
8	Leigh Centurions	7	1	0	6	146	231	−85	2

#	Home	Score	Away	Match Information
				Date and Time (Local)	Venue	Referee	Attendance
Million Pound Game
F	Wakefield Trinity Wildcats	24 – 16	Bradford Bulls	3 October, 14:50 BST	Belle Vue	R. Silverwood	7,246

• Therefore, Wakefield are the final team to secure a spot in Super League XXI.

• Championship Shield

The third of the three "Super 8" groups saw teams finishing 5th to 12th in the regular Championship table. Like the Super League 8's, these teams retained their original points and played 7 extra games, with the teams finishing in the top 4 places after these extra games contesting playoffs similar to Super League, with 1st v 4th and 2nd vs 3rd, with the winners contesting the Championship Shield Grand Final. The two teams finishing at the bottom of this Super 8s group (7th and 8th) were relegated to the League 1 2016 season, and replaced by the two 2015 League One promoted sides.

Position	Club	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Pts for	Pts agst	Points
1	Featherstone Rovers (Q)	30	19	0	11	809	701	38
2	Dewsbury Rams (Q)	30	17	1	12	686	624	35
3	London Broncos (Q)	30	15	0	15	756	674	30
4	Workington Town (Q)	30	11	1	18	587	782	23
5	Batley Bulldogs	30	10	0	20	645	707	20
6	Whitehaven	30	10	0	20	618	921	20
7	Hunslet Hawks (R)	30	8	0	22	518	957	16
8	Doncaster (R)	30	2	0	28	401	1128	4

(Q) Qualified for the semi-final (R) Relegated to League 1

#	Home	Score	Away	Match Information
				Date and Time (Local)	Venue	Referee	Attendance
CHAMPIONSHIP SHIELD SEMI-FINALS
SF1	Featherstone Rovers	52 – 14	Workington Town	27 September, 15:00	Post Office Road, Featherstone		1,233
SF1	Dewsbury Rams	18 – 34	London Broncos	27 September, 15:00.	Tetley's Stadium, Dewsbury		940
CHAMPIONSHIP SHIELD GRAND FINAL
F	Featherstone Rovers	34 – 6	London Broncos	Sunday 4 October, 4:30pm	Select Security Stadium	Chris Campbell	4,179

See also

• Championship
• 2014 Championship 1
• British rugby league system
• Super League
• Rugby League Conference
• Northern Ford Premiership
• National League Cup

References

External links

• Official Website

• 2015 in English rugby league
• 2015 in Welsh rugby league
• Rugby Football League Championship