2017 County Championship Plate 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
2017 County Championship Shield 2017 County Championship Shield The 2017 County Championship Shield, also known as Bill Beaumont Division Three, was the 13th version of the annual English rugby union County Championship, organised by the RFU for the tier 3 English counties. Each county drew its players from rugby union clubs from the fifth tier and below of the English rugby union league system. Due to changes to the competition across the board, the Shield competition was reduced to eight teams (see the section below for more detail on this), divided into two pools (north and south) with the pool winners meeting in the