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Los Jaguares are likely to play in the 2021 Súper Liga Americana de Rugby (SLAR). There is no place for the Argentine franchise in Super Rugby. Playing in Australia, New Zealand or South Africa or joining the Pro 14 or Major League Rugby are also out of the question. This leaves two options. First, Jaguares play SLAR in 2021. Second, do not play SLAR but have players train in high performance centers.
Sudamérica Rugby has expressed interest in including Los Jaguares in the 2021 SLAR competition. It would be the second new team added to the five from the 2020 season. Los Ceibos would remain in Córdoba and Los Jaguares would be the new team and play in Buenos Aires.
Critics have described Jaguares to SLAR as a retroceso incomparable, an unparalleled regression. The fear is that the level of play could fall. Evidently, there are no moves to establish a professional league in Argentina. The players need game time; SLAR is the means to this end for 2021.
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Many Argentine players from the 2020 Super Rugby campaign are no longer Jaguares. A player exodus has seen twelve confirmed departures. They are Matías Alemanno, Joaquín Díaz Bonilla, Agustín Creevy, Tomás Cubelli, Jerónimo de la Fuente, Bautista Delguy, Marcos Kremer, Julián Montoya, Matías Moroni, Matías Orlando, Guido Petti, and Joaquín Tuculet.
Moreover, prior player movement saw Tomás Lavanini, Pablo Matera, Ramiro Moyano, Enrique Pieretto, and Nicolás Sánchez all departing before the 2020 season. They were all involved in the 2019 Super Rugby Final. In other words, Los Jaguares in 2021 will be very different to the team from 2020 and earlier.
Four Ceibos players Rodrigo Fernández Criado, José Luis González, Federico Wegrzyn, and Juan Pablo Zeiss are in Australia for the Tri Nations. Ledesma also selected Lucas Mensa who was Los Ceibos’ captain before moving to France. In addition to Mensa, Facundo Cordero, Pablo Dimcheff, and Santiago Montagner now play abroad.
In short, there 23 players on Argentina’s 45-man Tri Nations roster who are presently Jaguares. One further Jaguar, Joel Sclavi would be involved if fit.
Jaguares to SLAR represents a number of options. In simple terms there are three. First, Jaguares join as they are. Second, Jaguares and Ceibos players are drafted to spread the players relatively even. Third, players are spread to both Argentine sides and to other SLAR teams.
Selknam upset Peñarol in the opening SLAR match. The Chilean side then played well against Los Ceibos in the second round. An improved Chile pushed Argentina XV hard before defeating Brazil, and Uruguay in the South American Four Nations. Eighteen players on the Argentina XV roster were also SLAR players and four were Jaguares.
Based on the evidence there are more than adequate player numbers for Argentina to field two SLAR teams. For this reason players could be loaned to other SLAR teams. Such a move would bring two key benefits to Argentine rugby. First, it would likely lift the standard of rugby being played. Second it would guarantee more Argentine players more game time in SLAR. Such factors are of interest to Los Pumas; the team will again see a mixture of home and foreign-based players in 2021.
ARGENTINA HIGH PERFORMANCE PLAYERS 2021: JAGUARES AND CEIBOS
FORWARDS
Javier Díaz, Alejandro Luna, Rodrigo Martínez, Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, Mayco Vivas, Federico Wegrzyn, José Luis González, Leonel Oviedo, Ignacio Ruiz, Santiago Socino, Martín Vaca, Estanislao Carullo, Lucas Favre, Santiago Medrano*, Francisco Minervino, Joel Sclavi, Lucio Sordoni, Juan Pablo Zeiss, Lucas Bur, Ignacio Calás, Rodrigo Fernández Criado, Federico Gutiérrez, Franco Molina, Lucas Paulos, Carlos Repetto, Ramiro Tallone, Jerónimo Ureta, Juan Cruz Pérez Rachel, Lautaro Bavaro, Juan Martín González, Francisco Gorrissen, Santiago Grondona, Tomás Lezana, Javier Ortega Desio, Santiago Ruiz, Lucas Santa Cruz, Rodrigo Bruni, Joaquín Oviedo, Bautista Pedemonte, Santiago Portillo
BACKS
Lautaro Bázan Vélez, Gonzalo Bertranou, Felipe Ezcurra, Gonzalo García, Ignacio Inchauspe, Joaquín Pellandini, Tomás Albornoz, Martín Elias, Santiago Mare, Domingo Miotti, Teo Castiglioni, Juan Pablo Castro, Santiago Chocobares, Lucio Cinti, Juan Cruz Mallía, Matías Osadczuk, Agustín Segura, Tomás Cubilla, Facundo Ferrario, Leopoldo Herrera, Martín Cancelliere, Sebastián Cancelliere, Mateo Carreras, Emiliano Boffelli*, Santiago Carreras, Juan Bautista Daireaux, Ignacio Mendy
* Player linked to a foreign club.
