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Gerónimo Prisciantelli is on his way to play in Italy. The Argentine utility back is to join Zebre to play in the United Rugby Championship (URC). The move will be the first foreign professional team for the 23-year-old.
Capable of playing center, fly half and fullback, Prisciantelli moves to the URC after two seasons in the Súper Liga Americana de Rugby (SLAR) playing for Los Jaguares XV. He started at fly half for the Argentina XV in the win over Georgia in July.
The move follows that of Ignacio Mendy to Italian URC rivals Benetton. Mendy had a stunning URC debut, scoring two tries in a win over the Glasgow Warriors. Mendy is also a former Jaguares XV player as is fellow Puma Tomás Albornoz who made his test debut for Argentina this year.
The possibilty now exists for Prisciantelli and Albornoz to play head-to-head at fly half for rival Italian sides in the URC. This is welcome news to Argentina as Nicolás Sánchez and Benjamín Urdapilleta are aged veterans and Santiago Carreras plays fullback for Gloucester.
Another possibility that the move opens up is that of an Argentine 9-10 combination in the URC. Prisciantelli joins Gonzalo García at the Parma club. García made his test debut in 2021 where he played in three matches for Los Pumas in the Rugby Championship. He has missed out on caps in 2022 due to injury.
García joined Zebre for the new season from the Italian Top 10. He and Prisciantelli were teammates for Argentina u20’s. Prisciantelli is the fourth Argentine on the roster. The others are prop Juan Pitinari and flanker Guido Volpi.
Prisciantelli was born in Buenos Aires in 1999. He is a product of CASI. He went through the Argentine high performance center system, playing at the junior level for his country before playing SLAR.
