South American 7s round-up

(Argentina v Chile at the Mar del Plata sevens)

This season has been a significant growth in the number of sevens tournaments in South and Central America featuring international women’s teams. Established men’s tournaments increasingly include women’s competitions, while the standard of other competitions grows with the inclusion of official or semi-official national teams.

The precise status of teams competing can vary tournaments are used to try out new players or formations, so it is difficult to draw any significant conclusions from the results, other than the fact that women’s sevens across the continent is growing rapidly year by year.

Competition kicked off with the NACRA Caribbean Sevens, which we reported in November. Most of the main teams from that tournament went on to Tobago for the Tobago Sevens on 7th December. Sixteen teams took part on probably the islands largest ever women’s tournament, including Trinidad & Tobago, Canadian Maple Leafs, Barbados, Mexico, Guyana, St. Lucia and the Cayman Islands, as well as several North American club combinations.

It is perhaps a measure of the strength of the Caribbean teams that the US and Canadian teams largely dominated the event, with the Maple Leafs adding the title to their NACRA crown, beating “Atlantis” from the USA 52-12 in the final. The best placed Caribbean team was Guyana, who finished 10th.

On the same weekend women’s rugby broke new ground when Costa Rica hosted the Central American Sevens, which featured in the regions first official women’s championship (after an exhibition event in Guatemala last year). Four teams – Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama – took part, all playing in their first major tournament.

The hosts ran out easy winners, scoring over 150 points in their four games and keeping a clean sheet until the final when El Salvador finally managed to cross their line, the final score being 38-7. Panama finished third.

The following weekend the action moved to Argentina where the Republic Sevens brought together the Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Peru, with the hosts winning the tournament, which was organised as a single pool with no final. Only Uruguay provided any real competition for the Argentines, both teams being well ahead of the rest. Argentina conceded only a single try, while Uruguay were almost as dominant. Paraguay finished third, and Chile fourth.

Which brings us to last weekend. The same teams (excepting Peru) came together again for the Mar del Plata Sevens - the most important tournament outside the continental championship, and now an official CONSUR event. The result, however, was the same. Paraguay and Chile were slightly more competitive than they had been before Christmas, but Argentina again finished winners with some ease, scoring 99 points in four games, conceding only 10. Uruguay were again runners-up, Paraguay third and Chile fourth.

Competition continues in two weeks time, back in central America where Guatemala will host the “Central American Cup” featuring themselves, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and a Mexican team (probably not the full strength national selection)..

It is noticeable that Brazil have thus far declined to take part in any competitions, deciding instead to concentrate on the World Sevens.

Results (Mar del Plata Sevens, 11/12 January 2014)

Uruguay 14-5 ParaguayArgentina 22-5 ChileUruguay 38-0 ChileArgentina 17-5 ParaguayChile 15-12 ParaguayArgentina 32-0 UruguayArgentina 22-0 Paraguay (Semi-Final)Uruguay 22-0 Chile (Semi-Final)Paraguay 10-5 Chile (3rd Place Match)Argentina 38-0 Uruguay (Final)

(With thanks to "mcruic" and others on the FIRA discussion database)