Professional rugby development in Argentina

Winters

According to reports the Argentinian Rugby Union, UAR, are going to start offering central contracts to their elite Argentinian players and also announce the set up two Super Rugby franchises in Buenes Aires (Los Aguilas) and Cordoba (Los Pampas). Also the UAR, mindful of dealing with players at different stages of the season, are going to adopt the NZ rule of only using domestic based players for the Rugby Championship. These changes are currently planned to be in place for the beginning of 2016 for start-up time and in order for existing players to see out existing contracts.

Exciting stuff for Argentina rugby and also Super Rugby, how they'll derive the conferences I don’t know. What that means to Europe perhaps would be less Argentinian players deciding to play here and perhaps teams looking elsewhere for foreign players.

Currently the UAR operates 5 rugby academies in the following provinces: Buenas Aires, Cordoba, Santa Fe (Rosario), Mendoza and Tucaman with plans for a 6th in La Salta. La Plata in Buenes Aires, Rosario and Mendoza currently host the three home Rugby Championship matches (NZ, Oz and SA respectively)

irishbucsfan

That's great. Have SANZAR signed off on them joining Super Rugby then? I wonder what the format will be like.

jamiedav2011

Very interesting, will take a while to get going I'd imagine, but a powerful, self sufficient Argentina is good for world rugby.

its_phil

Fantastic news. I can't imagine the Argentina only rule will work though.

Winters

No sign off on the new Super Rugby format yet. The first proposal was for two conferences, 5 NZ & 5 Oz in the first and then 6 SA and then either UAR or Japanese clubs in the second but that wasn't confirmed. The plan was then that after the two conferences were run off they would play eachother in the playoffs.

SA complained that that would entail too much travel and that their matches would be too similar to their Currie Cup games and wanted more games with Oz and NZ teams. Their stipulation this time around is the inclusion of their sixth Super Rugby franchise.

Who knows what the answer will be. Goes to show though that even when only the unions are involved everything isn't always straightforward!

Swiwi.

Winters wrote: »

According to reports the Argentinian Rugby Union, UAR, are going to start offering central contracts to their elite Argentinian players and also announce the set up two Super Rugby franchises in Buenes Aires (Los Aguilas) and Cordoba (Los Pampas). Also the UAR, mindful of dealing with players at different stages of the season, are going to adopt the NZ rule of only using domestic based players for the Rugby Championship. These changes are currently planned to be in place for the beginning of 2016 for start-up time and in order for existing players to see out existing contracts.

Exciting stuff for Argentina rugby and also Super Rugby, how they'll derive the conferences I don’t know. What that means to Europe perhaps would be less Argentinian players deciding to play here and perhaps teams looking elsewhere for foreign players.

Currently the UAR operates 5 rugby academies in the following provinces: Buenas Aires, Cordoba, Santa Fe (Rosario), Mendoza and Tucaman with plans for a 6th in La Salta. La Plata in Buenes Aires, Rosario and Mendoza currently host the three home Rugby Championship matches (NZ, Oz and SA respectively)

The issue is travel. Basically, as you said above, there had been plans to have 2 conferences: SA + Arg and NZ + Aus. However, SA don't want a replica of their Curry Cup, and it turned out the ANZAC players really like playing against SA teams. Trying to have a functional competition spread across SA, Arg, NZ and Aus is the big hurdle to be overcome. I'm looking forward to whatever they come up with, and philosophically I am 100% behind Argentinian players featuring in Super Rugby.

who_me

Surely the money gap would be too much for Argentinean players (haven't kept tabs on the current state of the Argentinean economy)? Is there a danger that the best players will opt for Euro contracts rather than international rugby.

Still, fingers crossed. I wonder how the established rugby clubs will take the creation of these franchises.

thebaz

Super stuff , I often think Argentina and the Pacific islanders to a lesser extent, are in no mans land - wish them well wherever they play , I'd assumes down under in a Super 17

errlloyd

This is brilliant news, it sounds like they might be copying an almost Irish model, 5 academies feeding into two clubs who play the highest quality of rugby week in week out, won't be long before they're expanding.