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The Greene King IPA Championship, England’s second division, will begin a drastically reduced season on the weekend of March 6. Having conceded six months to the pandemic, the 12-team competition will now be split into two conferences with each side playing 10 regular season games.
It remains to be seen how the clubs will negotiate Covid protocols with the clubs opting out of modified laws adopted by the Premier 15s. Most of the teams are in severe financial positions with very few capable of fielding fully professional sides. As a result they cannot afford the stringent Covid testing undertaken by Premiership teams.
This season was to be particularly notable given the high-profile demotion of Saracens for repeat breaches of the Premiership’s salary cap. They are considered overwhelming favorites to make an immediate return to the top flight. To do so Saracens will have to win first their conference and then a home-and-away final series against the winners of the second conference.
Teams were distributed based on the final standings of the truncated 2019-2020 season, with Saracens taking the place of winners Newcastle and Richmond replacing the relegated Yorkshire Carnegie (now Leeds Tykes). They are split as follows:
| CONFERENCE A | CONFERENCE B |
| Saracens (1) | Ealing Trailfinders (2) |
| Cornish Pirates (3) | Coventry (4) |
| Ampthill (5) | Nottingham (7) |
| Jersey Reds (6) | Bedford Blues (8) |
| Hartpury (10) | Doncaster Knights (9) |
| London Scottish (11) | Richmond (12) |
While rosters are yet to be finalized, this season should feature only a handful of Americas players. Saracens will have US Eagles pair Kapeli Pifeleti and Will Hooley, as well as Argentina’s Juan Pablo Socino. Countrymen Javier Rojas and Nicolás de Battista are currently contracted to Cornish Pirates, with Facundo Domínguez and Serafin Bordoli tentatively with Ampthill.
North American players have overwhelmingly opted to switch to Major League Rugby (MLR) while South Americans now have the Súper Liga Americana de Rugby (SLAR) as a domestic alternative. Given the new delay in kickoff and funding constraints, those remaining outside of Saracens could look to make an immediate return home.
