Chile full of confidence ahead of World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024

2024.01.11

When the Sevens Challenger begins in Dubai on Friday, head coach Joaquin Todeschini believes Los Cóndores Sevens can keep up their winning trend.

When the competition begins this weekend in Dubai, Chile will be hoping to utilize their silver medal from the Pan American Games 2023 as a springboard to victory in the men’s World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger.

In November, Los Cóndores Sevens defeated HSBC SVNS team USA in the semifinals and Sevens Challenger opponents Uruguay in the pool stage before falling short against Argentina at home.

This outcome followed the 15s side’s encouraging Men’s Rugby World Cup debut in France. Four players of that team, who also accompanied their nation to the silver medal at the Pan American Games, traveled to Dubai.

However, Chile’s first Sevens Challenger 2024 tournament draw is not easy, as they are grouped in Pool B with Portugal, Tonga, and Japan, the winners of the previous year’s competition.

The Sevens Challenger will travel to Munich and Montevideo after this weekend’s competition, and the top four finishers in the standings will be eligible to compete in a stand-alone promotion-relegation event in Madrid at the end of May. Joaquin Todeschini, the head coach, thinks his team has the talent to get at least that far.

“We felt good about ourselves after winning the silver medal in the Pan American Games,” he remarked.

“We are optimistic, but we are also aware of how difficult the final three stages to Madrid will be. The main goal is to get to Dubai and start fighting.

“Scoring points from the first stage is already essential, even though we know Dubai is not defining or decisive. We are aware that we must persevere through the extremely difficult group in order to get to the semi-final.

Then, on March 8–10, we have Montevideo, where we will have an edge because of less travel hours.

“Obviously, we want to position among the top four in order to qualify for Madrid, but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. This week is what we have our minds set on.

“It’s good that every team arrived with excellent preparation because this level of competition is what we need.” We’ve spoken with the coaches, and we know this will be a really hard event.

At The Sevens Stadium, Chile will take on the winners of the previous year, Tonga, at 14:36 local time (GMT+4) on Friday to begin their Sevens Challenger 2024 campaign.

The Pacific Island nation ranked fourth in 2023, four spots ahead of fifth-placed Chile, however Los Cóndores Sevens emerged victorious in their lone encounter throughout the two Stellenbosch events.

In the last minute of their pool-stage play at Markötter Stadium at the end of April, Jose Escobedo scored the game-winning try to give Chile a 22-19 victory.

Todeschini said: “The first match will be against Tonga and as in any tournament the first one is always the most difficult.

“We were able to beat them last year in Stellenbosch, but it was very hard. The match is going to be very important beyond the result because of the attitude.”Todeschini said

@charith