About

The Chilean national rugby union team (Spanish: Selección de rugby de Chile) represents Chile in men's international rugby union; it is organised by the Chilean Rugby Federation (Spanish: Federación Chilena de Rugby). Nicknamed Los Cóndores (The Condors in English), they play in red and white jerseys. They are currently ranked 21st in the world by World Rugby, making them the third highest-ranked nation in South America. Chile was the second South American nation after Argentina to play international rugby union, playing their first international test against Argentina in 1936 in Santiago. Chile is one of the founding members of CONSUR (now known as Sudamérica Rugby) in 1989, alongside Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Chile has long been participating in the South American Rugby Championship since 1951 and has consistently been the third or even the second best team in South America. In 2016, Chile, alongside the unions of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the United States, and Uruguay, formed the Americas Rugby Championship, aimed at increasing the standard of rugby union in the Americas region. Chile qualified for the 2023 Rugby World Cup, which will be their first appearance in the tournament; they upset Canada in a two-game series in October 2021, before defeating the United States in a two-game home-and-home series on aggregate by 1 point in July 2022. Chile were drawn with England, Japan, Argentina, and Samoa in Pool D of the World Cup. The sport has historic connections to the Scottish community in the country. In 2012, two Scottish-Chilean players, Donald and Ian Campbell, were inducted into the IRB (now World Rugby) Hall of Fame.