Americas Pacific Challenge
Most recent season or competition:
2021 World Rugby Americas Pacific Challenge
SportRugby Union
Inaugural season2016
Countries
Most recent
champion(s)		 Argentina XV (2021)
Most titles Argentina XV (3)

The Americas Pacific Challenge (APC) is a rugby union tournament funded by World Rugby [1] that serves as a development competition for Americas and Pacific island nations. It provides a way to prepare players for participation with their senior national men's teams during international tests [2] and in the Rugby World Cup qualification cycle.[3]

The competition has been hosted by the Uruguayan Rugby Union since 2016, with all games played in Montevideo.[1] Prior to its creation, two teams from the Americas had played in the Pacific Challenge, hosted by Fiji in 2015.[4] This was reversed in 2016 with two Pacific Island teams joining the inaugural APC [5] which effectively replaced the previous format of the Americas Rugby Championship.[6]

History

The APC was first contested in October 2016 by the national 'A' teams of Argentina, Canada, Fiji, Samoa, Uruguay and United States.[7] Tonga took the place of the Fijian team for the 2017 competition,[8] and retained that place in 2018.[9]

The competition had a two-year hiatus which encompassed the 2019 Rugby World Cup and a 2020 season disrupted by impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Teams from Brazil, Chile and Paraguay took part for the first time in the 2021 Challenge, but the Pacific Islands did not participate due to difficulties with COVID-19 travel logistics.[10]

Format

The Americas Pacific Challenge uses a split pool format wherein the six competing teams are divided into two pools of three.[11] Each team plays one match against each of the teams in the opposite pool.[11] The tournament's winner is decided based upon the number of points accumulated from each match.[11]

Participating teams

The final placings of all teams for each year are recorded in the table below as numbers (where 1 denotes first place, 2 denotes second, etc). The host nation's placing is shown in bold. A dash (–) is recorded in the year column if a team did not compete at a tournament.


Year
Nation
 2016 2017 2018 2021 Years
played
North America
 Canada A 6 6 5 – 3
 USA Selects 5 2 6 5 4
South America
 Argentina XV 1 1 2 1 4
 Brazil A – – – 3 1
 Chile A – – – 2 1
 Paraguay A – – – 6 1
 Uruguay A 4 5 3 4 4
Pacific teams
 Fiji Warriors 2 – – – 1
 Samoa A 3 4 1 – 3
 Tonga A – 3 4 – 2
Number of teams
All time total: 10 		6 6 6 6 4
Editions

Winners

Year # of
Teams 		Winner Runner-up Venue
2016 6  Argentina XV  Fiji Warriors Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo
2017 6  Argentina XV  USA Selects Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo
2018 6  Samoa A  Argentina XV Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo
2021 6  Argentina XV  Chile A Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Americas Pacific Challenge set for October kick-off in Uruguay". World Rugby. July 9, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  2. ^ "Uruguay 'A' beats Canada 'A' at World Rugby Americas Pacific Challenge". TSN. Montevideo, Uruguay. The Canadian Press. October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  3. ^ Rowe, James (September 20, 2018). "USA Selects Americas Pacific Challenge Roster Announced". The Runner Sports. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  4. ^ "Rugby World Cup places on offer in Pacific Challenge". Radio New Zealand. March 10, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2019.
  5. ^ "Americas Pacific Challenge – Round 3 Preview". Americas Rugby News. October 15, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2019.
  6. ^ "World Rugby confirms Americas Pacific Challenge". Americas Rugby News. September 7, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  7. ^ "2016 Americas Pacific Challenge". Americas Rugby News. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  8. ^ "2017 Americas Pacific Challenge". Americas Rugby News. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  9. ^ "2018 Americas Pacific Challenge". Americas Rugby News. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  10. ^ "Americas Pacific Challenge – Round 1 Preview". Americas Rugby News. October 22, 2021. Archived from the original on October 22, 2021.
  11. ^ a b c "World Rugby Americas Pacific Challenge 2018 Match Schedule Announced". USA Rugby. August 22, 2018. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
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