Los Pumas 7s rise again: Argentina clinch second straight SVNS league title

Argentina have made more history on the HSBC SVNS Series by becoming back-to-back league winners after a series of standout tournaments during the regular season, which included three tournament titles from five events.

Los Pumas Sevens became league winners for the first time at Singapore’s National Stadium in 2024 and it was at the very same venue that they reached those great heights once again after topping their pool during this season’s round-robin finale.

After taking out Cup titles at the last three events in Perth, Vancouver and Hong Kong China, Los Pumas Sevens needed to finish in sixth-place or better at SVNS Singapore. It didn’t come easy, though, as they suffered a shock loss in their first of two pool matches.

LA’s Dignity Health Sports Park will host the World Championship and SVNS Series playoffs on May 3-4. Don’t miss out – buy your tickets HERE.

With a different competition format spreading the 12 teams across four pools instead of three, only the group winners would move onto the semi-finals. Argentina’s two-point loss to South Africa was a shock, but they still had a chance to progress through to the final four.

Great Britain had recorded a 38-10 win over the Blitzboks earlier on Saturday, and with Argentina beating GB 19-12 in one of the final matches of the day, that was enough to send the South Americans through to the semi-finals and more.

Argentina are the 2024/25 SVNS Series Men’s league winners.

“It’s pretty awesome. We lost before to South Africa, it was a tough game,” Argentina’s Tobis Wade told RugbyPass.

“The team after the Olympics maintained completely the same guys so we tried to get an effort to train hard and try to repeat what we did last year.

“We worked really hard to do this again.”

Last season, Argentina had been the form side during the regular season and it wasn’t a shock to see them sit in first-place at the end of the round-robin. But there’s still another prize to play for on the SVNS Series, with a World Championship determining the overall winner.

Los Pumas Sevens made it into the World Championship game last season at Madrid’s Civitas Metropolitano, but they ended up going down swinging to Antoine Dupont’s France who had finished fifth at the end of the round-robin.

On Saturday, coach Santi Gomez Cora and the playing group were emotional but there seemed to be a firm understanding of the job that is still yet to be done. The World Championship at Los Angeles’s Dignity Health Sports Park on May 3-4 is a battle for the top prize.

But, even before that, it’s all about Singapore on Sunday.

“The league is awesome, it’s a great prize for us because it is the whole year for us being competitive. It’s very important,” Wade explained.

“Tomorrow we are playing semi-finals so we have to get our body recovered.”

Argentina will take on fan favourites Fiji in the second men’s semi-final at 2:56 pm local time on Sunday. In the other knockout clash, Kenya are one win away from their first Cup Final on the SVNS Series since the 2018 Hong Kong Sevens, but Spain stands in their way.

Download the RugbyPass App to watch exclusive SVNS Series videos and catch up on the latest news you need to know. Download it from the App Store HERE or Google Play.