The Rugby League Conference Welsh Championship was the lower of two Welsh domestic leagues for the sport of

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

. It was a division of the

Rugby League Conference The Rugby League Conference (RLC) (also known as the Co-operative Rugby League Conference as a result of sponsorship from The Co-operative Group), was a series of regionally based divisions of amateur rugby league teams spread throughout England, ...

competition which covers all of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

History

The

was founded in 1997 as the ''Southern Conference'', a 10-team pilot league for teams in the

South of England Southern England, or the South of England, also known as the South, is an area of England consisting of its southernmost part, with cultural, economic and political differences from the Midlands and the North. Officially, the area includes Gr ...

and

English Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...

. It expanded into Wales for the first time in 2001 when

Cardiff Demons The Cardiff Demons RLFC name has been used multiple times over the years. Firstly for a now-defunct men's rugby league side, and subsequently for a women's rugby league side who began in 2021. The men's sids played out of St. Peters RFC in the ...

joined the South West division. After two years of just one club in South Wales, the RFL saw that it was time to expand, letting in six more open-aged sides to form the new Welsh Conference and Wales gained its own division for the first time. The Premier Division were set up in 2005 for teams who had achieved a certain playing standard and were able to travel further afield to find stronger opposition. The new Premier Divisions included the North Premier, the South Premier, the Central Premier and the Welsh Premier. The Welsh Premier division was split into two divisions East Wales and West Wales in 2006, though this decision was reversed for the following season. The Welsh Conference Junior League began in 2009. Due to the growth of the sport in Wales, in 2010 a separate Championship division was formed which would function at one tier lower than the present Premier division. This Championship division featured teams from South Wales, but another Championship division featuring teams from North Wales was meant to be contested, but it didn't materialise and a

rugby league nines Rugby league nines (or simply nines) is a version of rugby league football played with nine players on each side. The game is substantially the same as full rugby league, with some differences in rules and shorter games. Nines is usually played in ...

tournament was played instead. The South Wales Rugby League Championship was given a re-structure following four West Wales clubs not fulfilling fixtures. Amman Valley Rhinos, Dinefwr Sharks, Swansea/Llanelli Dragons and West Wales Wild Boars were omitted and replaced with newly formed Dyffryn Devils. The league was scrapped after the 2011 season.

2011

Teams

Teams play each other on a home-and-away basis. *NB: Blackwood Bulldogs failed to start the season

Winners

* 2010 Neath Port Talbot Steelers * 2011 Bonymaen Broncos

Junior league

Welsh teams also compete at under-17; under-15 and under-13 age groups.

External links

Official Wales Rugby League Website
{{British Rugby League links Rugby league in Wales Rugby League Conference Rugby league competitions in the United Kingdom