Chile's men aiming to go back-to-back in Cape Town

Chile’s men kicked off their bid to win promotion to HSBC SVNS by winning the opening tournament of this year’s World Rugby Challenger Series in Cape Town, South Africa.

Los Cóndores 7s conceded the first score to Canada in Sunday’s final but roared back with five unanswered tries of their own to win 33-7. It was their first victory over Canada in a World Rugby sevens event since 2007.

Within a couple of minutes of falling behind to Kyle Tremblay’s try for Canada, Chile were back on level terms when Manuel Bustamante scored midway through the first half.

Luca Strabucchi, who was capped four times in 15s by Chile in 2024, then bagged a brace before captain Lucca Avelli and Julián Troncoso added further tries as Chile ended the tournament on a high.

Avelli was delighted with the win, which is the first step towards Chile becoming an elite men’s sevens team: “We’ve put a lot of work in over the last year, and I’m very proud of the group. This win is really great. Our goal is to get HSBC SVNS, and we won’t stop until we get there,” he said.

Meanwhile, Canada head coach Sean White is hoping to go one better this weekend, believing that there were only fine margins between success and failure despite the one-sided scoreline.

“Despite the loss in the final, I’m very pleased with the play for our squad,” he said.

“We’ve shown ourselves what we are capable of when we focus on our foundations and execute. We’ve also experienced what happens when we get these processes wrong against good teams.

“As a group we remain focused on small, consistent improvements each time we come together and will make the adjustments needed to compete for the podium again next week here in Cape Town.”

The second tournament of the Challenger series takes place in Cape Town this weekend, with the top-ranked eight men’s and women’s teams progressing to the third and final tournament at the Henryk Reyman’s Municipal Stadium in Krakow on 11-12 April.

All the action will once again be live and free to watch on the RugbyPass App.

The four men’s and women’s teams with the most cumulative points gained across the three Challenger rounds will then qualify for the HSBC SVNS Play Off in Los Angeles on 3-4 May, where they will face the bottom four ranked teams from HSBC SVNS 2025 in a high-stakes promotion and relegation tournament with four coveted places in future SVNS at stake.

Chile reached last year’s SVNS play-off after finishing the Challenger series in third but missed out on promotion. Canada have dropped down into the Challenger after being relegated from HSBC SVNS following a 22-14 defeat to Spain in Madrid last June.

Germany finished third in the opening tournament after downing former world series champions, Samoa, 19-14.