2011–12 Premiership Rugby

The 2011–12 Aviva Premiership was the 25th season of the top flight of the English domestic rugby union competitions and the second to be sponsored by Aviva. It began on 3 September with five matches, including the annual London Double Header at Twickenham, and ended with the final on 26 May, also at Twickenham.

2011–12 Aviva Premiership
Countries	England
Champions	Harlequins (1st title)
Runners-up	Leicester Tigers
Relegated	Newcastle Falcons
Matches played	135
Attendance	1,755,073 (average 13,001 per match)
Top point scorer	Tom Homer (London Irish) (278 points)
Top try scorer	Rob Miller (Sale Sharks) (10 tries)

The champions were Harlequins, who claimed their first-ever top-flight title after defeating Leicester Tigers in the final; Quins also finished atop the table in the home-and-away season.[1][2][3] The season's defending champions, Saracens, lost in the semi-finals to Leicester. Worcester Warriors were the newcomers for this season, after having earned promotion by winning the 2010–11 RFU Championship play-offs against Cornish Pirates; they successfully avoided relegation. Newcastle Falcons finished on the bottom of the 2011–12 table and were relegated to the RFU Championship. The Falcons relegation was confirmed when London Welsh, who won the Championship, successfully appealed the decision of the Rugby Football Union that they did not meet the standards for promotion.

The 2011–12 season was the first for a major change in the Premiership's salary cap, which at the time stood at £4 million per team. In what is now a permanent feature of the cap system, academy credits were introduced. Each team receives a £30,000 credit for every home-grown player in their senior squad, with a maximum of eight such credits. In addition, a standard provision of the cap system that applies only in seasons that run up against the Rugby World Cup provided each team with a credit of £30,000 for each senior squad player that participated in the World Cup.[4]