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Brazil’s professional rugby team, Os Cobras Brasil XV had a 3-7 season in the 2021 Súper Liga Americana de Rugby (SLAR) season. The team completed two wins over Los Cafeteros Pro (30-14 in Santiago and 22-14 in Montevideo) and ended the 2021 season on a high with a 21-20 win over Selknam.
SLAR 2022 will be the third season of the South American professional rugby competition. It is to be the second year for Os Cobras Brasil XV. The Brazilian entrant in the inaugural season in 2020 was Corinthians. Os Cobras replaced Corinthians for SLAR 2021.
Os Cobras Brasil XV go in to SLAR 2022 as the 5th seed. This is based on a number of factors with the leading one being the outcome from the 2021 season. Os Cafeteros Pro were winless in 2021 making them the team seeded 6th while the four Semi Finalists enter as the top four seeds.
Changes to the Cobras roster from 2021 to 2022 have been significant. With Brazil eliminated early in the RWC 2023 qualifiers attention has turned to the next RWC cycle. This has seen a number of veteran players replaced by young names for SLAR 2022.
A detailed squad list can be seen here.
COACHING STAFF
Fernando Portugal will be the head coach of Os Cobras in 2022. He is one of the all-time greats of Brazilian rugby. The center from São José dos Campos played for his country in a lengthily test career and also played Rugby Sevens. He had a stint playing professional rugby in Italy. As a coach he has been involved in Brazil’s High Performance program in addition to coaching the test team.
NEWCOMERS
The 2022 Cobras roster has no shortage of new names. Uncapped players include hooker David Muller, fly half Carlos Moura, centers Pedro Goulart, Joel Santos and Victor Souza and winger Sérgio Luna. Players brought in from abroad are former France 7’s player Simon Bienvenu, Argentina XV prop Mariano Filomeno and N8 Francisco Suárez Folch from La Plata.
DEPARTED
Fifteen Cobras players from SLAR 2021 are not on the roster for SLAR 2022. Argentine fullback Franco Giudice is now at Los Cafeteros Pro and second-rower Manuel Bernstein is at Los Jaguares XV. Brazilians Matheus Rocha, Leonel Moreno, Caique Silva and now play in Portugal, France and Spain respectively while Argentine utility back Marcos de Sanctis is at Viadana in Italy. Notable omissions for SLAR 2022 inclide Lucas Abud, Felipe Cunha, Moisés Duque, Joshua Reeves, Yan Rosetti and Felipe Sancery.
IMPORTS
Os Cobras Brasil XV is Brazilian-centric. That is to say that the players are predominantly either homegrown Brazilian players or they are eligible to represent Brazil in test matches. Prop Mariano Filomena and center Simon Bienvenu were recruited from abroad for SLAR 2022. Brazilian-eligibile or capped players on the roster who are from abroad include Pedro Goulart and Joel Ramírez (Argentina), Laurent Bourda-Couhet (France), and Devon Müller (South Africa).
POSSIBLE STARTING XV
1 – Alexandre Alves
2 – Endy Willian
3 – Mariano Filomeno
4 – Cleber Días
5 – Gabriel Paganini
6 – Adrio de Melo
7 – Matheus Cláudio
8 – André Arruda
9 – Douglas Rauth
10 – Lucas Spago
11 – Robson Morais
12 – Simon Bienvenu
13 – Gabriel Quirino
14 – Daniel Lima
15 – Daniel Sancery
