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SuperLiga Americana de Rugby (SLAR)

argie

Academy Player
Joined
Dec 30, 2015
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Argentina
Club or Nation
Jaguares
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It was officially launched on friday in Montevideo the first proffesional rugby league of South America, with a generic name thought for a future expansion to the Central or even North America countries.

The initial season will start in february 2020 in a round robin of 5 teams composed of a mixture of franchises and football soccer clubs, with semi-finals and final.
One sixth team will add fully in 2021, but first will play two games in 2020 with the last team of the group.

The teams are from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, and Colombia. One per country in the first season, expecting one more fron Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay in next editions.

Ceibos - Córdoba, Argentina (franchise) -
Corinthians - Sao Paulo, Brazil (Football soccer club)
Selknam - santiago, Chile (franchise)
Olimpia Lions - Asunción, Paraguay (football soccer club)
Peñarol - Montevideo, Uruguay (football soccer club)
Cafeteros Pro - Bogotá, Colombia (franchise)

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2022 schedule announced. Same six teams, but unfortunately (due to finances as much as Covid) it is to be played in bubbles in Uruguay, Chile and Argentina, with all six sides playing in the same location on any given day.


I feel bad for overlooking this tournament previously. The standard was clearly far higher than I thought despite Jaguares dominance, as shown by the performance of Uruguay and Chile internationally last year. I mainly only followed scores and can remember Selknam (Chile) and Olimpia (Paraguay) both making progress as last season progressed. So I am looking for them to shake up the playoff seedings this time around after fairly narrow losses in the semis last time.

Concerns about finances and a lot of 1330hrs weekday kick-off times, plus the ongoing public health situation suggests the situation is delicate for the future of the tournament. But on field the standard should be good despite player departures (including players to Spanish, Portguese and Italian clubs who presumably don't play top dollar).

The big story for a neutral is whether Selknam can improve to at least second best, to challenge the Jaguares and peak in time to then out on Chilean shirts and face the US in the RWC qualifier.

Other sub plots are:
- can the Cobras bring Brazilian rugby out of a tailspin (they lost to Kenya and Zimbabwe last month, just a few years after beating the US). Or will they be a shock last placed finish?
- will Olimpia and Cafeteros show signs of Paraguayan and Colombian players closing the gap on Brazil and making strides towards being able to field an international side in a South American international tournament (following the demise of the ARC for political reasons).

It all restarts on 5th of March, 2022. I pick Selknam as my favourites, and that is with my head, not my heart.
 
2022 schedule announced. Same six teams, but unfortunately (due to finances as much as Covid) it is to be played in bubbles in Uruguay, Chile and Argentina, with all six sides playing in the same location on any given day.


I feel bad for overlooking this tournament previously. The standard was clearly far higher than I thought despite Jaguares dominance, as shown by the performance of Uruguay and Chile internationally last year. I mainly only followed scores and can remember Selknam (Chile) and Olimpia (Paraguay) both making progress as last season progressed. So I am looking for them to shake up the playoff seedings this time around after fairly narrow losses in the semis last time.

Concerns about finances and a lot of 1330hrs weekday kick-off times, plus the ongoing public health situation suggests the situation is delicate for the future of the tournament. But on field the standard should be good despite player departures (including players to Spanish, Portguese and Italian clubs who presumably don't play top dollar).

The big story for a neutral is whether Selknam can improve to at least second best, to challenge the Jaguares and peak in time to then out on Chilean shirts and face the US in the RWC qualifier.

Other sub plots are:
- can the Cobras bring Brazilian rugby out of a tailspin (they lost to Kenya and Zimbabwe last month, just a few years after beating the US). Or will they be a shock last placed finish?
- will Olimpia and Cafeteros show signs of Paraguayan and Colombian players closing the gap on Brazil and making strides towards being able to field an international side in a South American international tournament (following the demise of the ARC for political reasons).

It all restarts on 5th of March, 2022. I pick Selknam as my favourites, and that is with my head, not my heart.
I like Selknam too and followed them the best I could last season (watched highlights and read articles). When I was a kid my neighbor's Mom was from Chile and she was really nice. So that's my reason for picking Selknam. The only South American country I've been to is Peru, but I don't think rugby is very popular there. Not yet anyway.
 
I somehow managed to put my reply in your quote and can't fix it. That is what I call professional level incompetence.

Olimpia Lions have one of the most experienced coaches (their coach Perez coached the Jaguares in Super Rugby, although not very successfully) and had a solid bunch of Argentines to support the players. Their scores in the last few rounds last year saw them pushing the Jaguares fairly hard and certainly surprised me.
 
The winner of Major League Rugby was supposed to play the winner of SLAR last year to determine the Champion of the America's. But Covid-19 put the kibosh on that. They planned to play that match in Mexico and I hope they'll try again someday.
 
The winner of Major League Rugby was supposed to play the winner of SLAR last year to determine the Champion of the America's. But Covid-19 put the kibosh on that. They planned to play that match in Mexico and I hope they'll try again someday.
Yes it is strange we hear suggestions some SLAR clubs are struggling financially but that SLAR is consistently rumoured to be looking to link up with the MLR and South Africa. I think a one off annual 'Champion of the Americas' would have a bit of prestige. Plus it could be played in the same timezone, which is critical in my opinion.

My guess is it is primarily the Jaguares pushing for this to get extra fixtures that are interesting, might attract an audience and are of a good standard.
 
A further slightly concerning development is no games will now be played in the Buenos Aires bubble, with those instead being moved to a bubble in Paraguay. So no games in Argenitina, the only participating country with a history of having 10k+ crowds for club matches.


The fact the announcement mentions "operational and logistics costs" in any way in relation to this decision is also very concerning. How little money must you have to be unable to even afford a bubble in Argentina? With respect, it's not Monaco or Singapore. I fear a bit for the future of the tournament.
 
SLAR kicks off this weekend with the following fixtures that arguably put the top three against the bottom three.

Cobras vs Peñarol
Jaguares vs Cafeteros
Selknam vs Olimpia

My very ill informed season predictions are:

1st - Selknam (Chile) - improved last season and overlap with improving national side, but with a different coach

2nd - Jaguares (Arg) - lost a lot of players so will not be clearly dominant as last year. Didn't totally boss the semi or final last year.

3rd - Penarol (Uruguay) - good overlap with strong national side.

4th - Cafeteros (Colombia) - taken over by Argentine union and have only 10 Colombian players, perhaps focussing on the cream of their talent playing in a higher quality team (or just on saving money by paying less Colombians)

5th - Olimpia (Paraguay) - new coach brought in at a late stage, but decent playing talent

6th - Cobras (Brazil) - new coach brought in at a late stage with overlap with a regressing Brazilian national side.
 
I was complaining that we didnt get/did/allowed a second Argentine team, apparently for financial reasons, but looks like we actually got one, only thats is playing in colombia...

PS: so basically cafeteros turned out to be a second argie side, nominally colombian so their goverment pays for it, they wont even played in colombia since all the tournament would be play in uruguay/chile/paraguay

The SLAR is such a disspointment, things were looking well in 2020, we had a team in super rugby, a team in the second division of the curry cup, with talks to get it to the top division, a team not based in buenos aires, in the slar, with pressure to get more team in both the slar and super rugby, we already had three professional teams (with very different quality in their leagues I know), not I would have hope for (that would a clubs professionalization with a league like in france or england), but we were close to have 4 or more teams, what seems to works well for the home nations that are not england, we already had more teams that scotland. Now we can barely mantain a team in a barely competitive league.

The SLAR champion is not going to play the MLR Champion as it was suppose to in 2020 either, that topic is not even mention anymore. As I said really dissapointing. The UAR too, Spain and Romania are on the way to have full professional leagues, and we can barely mantain one team with world rugby support. Covid sent us back decades
 
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I think the standard in SLAR is decent and likely comparable to the second tier of the Currie Cup (possibly stronger). Plus confining it to SA makes more sense in terms of natural rivalries and travel costs.

The problem is there appears to be no money. We had excellent competitive scorelines at the weekend but playing in bubbles to save travel costs means almost no fans in the stadium and a crap looking product on TV.

I desperately hope the SLAR project can stay afloat or every union in SA will likely regress significantly.
 
My Selknam prediction is back on track. After their shocking start to the season they defeat the defending champs Jaguares. Time for the US to get nervous if the Chilean side continues to improve as the season goes on.

 
already nervous, I've been tracking their results in preparation for July
 
I got my top 4 sides right, but in the wrong order. Penarol (1st) will play Cafeteroes (4th) and Selknam (2nd) will play Jaguares (3rd) for a place in the final. I stick with my pick of Selknam for the winners as they have reportedly dropped points due to experimenting in some matches.
 

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