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Castres are in talks with Uruguay’s Santiago Arata, Americas Rugby News can confirm. The French Top 14 club have made an offer to the scrum-half to join them next season. This would enable him to complete his contract with the Houston SaberCats in Major League Rugby.
Arata was a star performer for Uruguay at RWC 2019. ARN named him as the Americas’ MVP for the competition. At RWC 2019 Arata won six turn-overs, defeated 6 tacklers, made 38 tackles of his own and box-kicked over 50 meters on numerous occasions. He is considered by this publication as being the best scrum-half in the Americas.
In his test career Arata has rapidly compiled 43 caps for Uruguay. He debuted against Canada in the inaugural Americas Rugby Championship (ARC), doing so straight out of the u20s. He filled the boots of Agustín Ormaechea who was unavailable due to Pro D2 commitments.
Before and during RWC 2019 Arata was favored ahead of Ormaechea as Uruguay’s starting scrum-half. For the RWC 2019 qualifiers against Canada in January 2018 Arata was the starting no 9 and at RWC 2019 this continued to be the case.
Castres is the home to Uruguayan second-rower Rodrigo Capó Ortega. The 38-year-old veteran of RWC 2003 has been at the club since 2002 and has won the Top 14 title on two occasions with Castres.
Also at Castres is Argentine fly half Benjamín Urdapilleta and Canadian winger Taylor Paris. Should Arata complete the move to Castres then he may well be lining-up together with Urdapilleta to form an Uruguayan-Argentine halves combination.
