The 2014–15 Aviva Premiership was the 28th season of the top flight English domestic

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

competition and the fifth one to be sponsored by

Aviva Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 19 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general ...

. The reigning champions entering the season were

Northampton Saints Northampton Saints (officially Northampton Rugby Football Club) is a professional rugby union club from Northampton, England. The club plays in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby union. It was formed in 1880 as "Northampton St. ...

, who had claimed their first title after defeating

Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century History of Germany, German woodcut depicting Saracens ''Saracen'' ( ) was a term used both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to ...

in the 2014 final.

London Welsh London Welsh Rugby Football Club () was a rugby union club formed in 1885. Based in Old Deer Park, Richmond-upon-Thames, London Welsh RFC played in the English Premiership in the 2012–13 and 2014–15 seasons, after gaining promotion from ...

had been promoted as champions from the 2013–14 RFU Championship at the first attempt. The competition was broadcast by

BT Sport TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport) is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, Warner Bros. Discovery and BT Group, they first launched as B ...

for the second successive season. Highlights of each weekend's games were shown on ITV.

Summary

won their second title after defeating

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

in the final at

Twickenham Twickenham ( ) is a suburban district of London, England, on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who ...

after having finished fourth in the regular season table.

were relegated after losing all of their games. It was the second time that London Welsh have been relegated from the top flight since the leagues began and the first time since the

2012–13 Premiership Rugby The 2012–13 Aviva Premiership was the 26th season of the top-flight English domestic rugby union competition and the third one to be sponsored by Aviva. The reigning champions entering the season were Harlequins, who had claimed their first ti ...

season. As usual, round 1 included the

London Double Header The London Double Header ran between 2004 and 2017 and typically opened the season of Premiership Rugby (currently known as the Gallagher Premiership due to sponsorship), the top rugby union league in England. Two games were played consecutively a ...

, the eleventh instance since its inception in 2004.

Teams

Twelve teams compete in the league – the top eleven teams from the previous season and

who were promoted from the 2013–14 RFU Championship after a top flight absence of one year. They replaced

Worcester Warriors Worcester Warriors are a professional rugby union club based in Worcester, England. They most recently played in Premiership Rugby, the top division of English rugby union, before being suspended by the Rugby Football Union, RFU in September 2 ...

who were relegated after three years in the top flight.

Stadiums and locations

Pre-season

The Premiership Rugby Sevens Series continued with the 2014 edition. In a change to the format, the series was expanded to include the four Welsh Regions. As a result, the series began on 26 July 2014, at the BT Sport Cardiff Arms Park, continuing at

Kingsholm Kingsholm is an area of Gloucester, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is home to Kingsholm Stadium, which hosts Gloucester Rugby and other international matches. It is also home to a Church of England school, Kingsholm Primary Sch ...

Franklin's Gardens Franklin's Gardens (currently known for sponsorship purposes as cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens) is a purpose-built rugby stadium in Northampton, England. It is the home stadium of Northampton Saints and Loughborough Lightning. The stadiu ...

and

Kingston Park Kingston Park is a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, about north west of the city centre. It is home to several large retailers, the largest being one of Tesco's flagship stores—at 11,055 square metres (119,000 sq ft) which was also t ...

on 31 July, 1 August and 2 August 2014 respectively. The finals were on 8 August 2014 at the

Twickenham Stoop Twickenham Stoop Stadium (informally referred to as The Stoop) is a stadium located in south-west London, England, situated just across the road from Twickenham Stadium. The stadium is home to the Harlequins in Premiership Rugby and has a c ...

. This was the first opportunity of the season for any of the teams competing in the Premiership to win a trophy. Gloucester won the series for the second year in the row, beating Newport Gwent Dragons 12–5 in the final to become the first team to retain the title. As Gloucester have already qualified for the World Club 7s at

, the place allocated to the winner of the final was given to Harlequins, as the next best performing English club.

Table

Regular season

Fixtures for the season were announced by Premiership Rugby on 4 July and, as with previous seasons, Round 1 included the annual

. Fixtures as per Premiership Rugb
Match Centre
All matches following Round 9 were subject to change depending on the television picks for a given round.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

::* This match set a world record for attendance at a domestic club rugby match. This record was broken at the 2016 Top 14 final at

Camp Nou Camp Nou (), meaning ''New Field'' and often referred to in English as the Nou Camp, is a stadium in Barcelona and the home of La Liga club FC Barcelona since its opening in 1957. It is currently undergoing renovation, and with a planned increa ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, which drew 99,124.

Round 19

Round 20

Round 21

Round 22

Play-offs

As in previous seasons, the top four teams in the Premiership table, following the conclusion of the regular season, contest the play-off semi-finals in a 1st vs 4th and 2nd vs 3rd format, with the higher ranking team having home advantage. The two winners of the semi-finals then meet in the Premiership Final at

on 30 May 2015.

Bracket

Semi-finals

Final

Leading scorers

Note: Flags indicate national union as has been defined under WR eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-WR nationality.

Most points

Source:

Most tries

Source:

Awards

The following received Player of the Month awards during the 2014–15 season, as selected by a panel of media commentators, in addition to monthly public polls.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:2014-15 Premiership Rugby 2014-15

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...