Originally launched at a time when there was no formalised league structure for club matches in England, the competition was devised to allow players to gain experience of representative rugby, and concentrate the country's strongest players into a single competitive tournament below international level, thereby providing a better basis for selecting a successful England team.
All matches were generally played in the December of each season, to prepare players ahead of the start of the Five Nations Championship in the new year.
[1][2][3][4] The president of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) during the 1976/77 season, former England scrum-half and captain Dickie Jeeps, organised a series of meetings with club and county administrators and persuaded them that a divisional championship involving the country's best players would present a high standard of play to assist selectors in choosing a successful international team.
The country was divided into four representative areas, North, Midlands, London, and South & South-West, which had previously formed as teams to play mostly against international touring sides, and each division had a national selector acting as chairman of their respective selection committee.
[6] One of its key recommendations was to re-introduce the concept of a Divisional Championship, but with each division playing each other in a round-robin system to decide the winner.