League One 2017: Expansion

The first division Super League in the UK has one French club and eleven teams from the traditional heartlands. Division two (Championship) also had one French based side and one in London, the rest (ten in total) were in the north of England although Sheffield isn't what I'd call from a historical RL area. So we'll make nine out of twelve heartland teams.

Which brings us the the third division, League One. Of the sixteen clubs, only seven from traditional RL towns, two based in Wales, six from the rest of England (including one from North East England) and one from Canada. How did the non-traditional teams fare?

Below I have colour-coded the list, green being for the traditional areas, blue for the rest of England, orange and salmon the others. This is for the fifteen round first stage only.

				Rk	Club	Pts
				1	Toronto	30
				2	Whitehaven	27
				3	Barrow	25
				4	York	20
				5	Doncaster	20
				6	Newcastle	18
				7	Keighley	15
				8	Workington	15
				9	North Wales	15
				10	Hunslet	14
				11	London Scholars	13
				12	Gloucester	12
				13	Oxford	8
				14	Coventry	4
				15	South Wales	2
				16	Hemel	2

With the exception of Toronto which was a fully professional squad, the heartland clubs did by far the best. Still, it's good to see the new areas giving it a crack. On top of that, promotion is an option for any that have the backing and desire to move up.