1900s–60s , commonly seen in Uruguayan sport fields, became the emblem of the Uruguayan National Rugby Team. There are reports of
rugby football being played in Uruguay as early as 1865. The game was introduced by
British immigrants, with the game being more popularized by the
Congregation of Christian Brothers, who were of Irish origin. Because of this, Uruguay has one of the oldest rugby cultures outside the
British Isles, and one of the most established in the
South America. Uruguay made their official international debut in 1948, in a game against
Chile, which Uruguay lost 21–3. Following their debut match, they returned to competition in the
Pan American Games, first against the more experienced
Argentina, resulting in a 0–62 loss. Uruguay then faced Chile for the second time, defeating them by 8–3. The final match of the competition was a 17–10 win over
Brazil. Uruguay thus became runners up in the first unofficial
South American Rugby Championship. Uruguay, after a four years hiatus, played Chile in 1956, who defeated them by 6–3. In 1958, they played for the first official South American Rugby Championship, in a pool of three countries. They first played Chile, this time losing by 9–34. The
Teros met again Argentina, having another loss, this time by 3–50. Uruguay managed to defeat
Peru (10–6) in the last game. In 1960, Uruguay faced for the first time one of the powers of the Northern Hemisphere rugby,
France XV, losing by 0–61 in
Montevideo during a
South American tour. Uruguay after this match entered their second South American Rugby Championship. They first won against Brazil in a close game (11–8), then losing to Chile (5–28) and Argentina (3–36) in the closest result to then between both countries.
1970s – 1980s The 1970s started off with a win over
Paraguay in 1971, which was followed by a win and loss against Chile and a win against Brazil. They also played Argentina twice in the 1970s. However, they won all their matches except for those against Argentina, as well as losing one game against Chile and drawing another. However, the next game against Argentina, two years later in 1979, Uruguay came close to defeating the Pumas, going down by just three points, the final score being 19 to 16. The 1980s started off with a 54 to 14 win over
Paraguay, which resulted in a winning streak that was stopped by Argentina in 1983. In 1985,
France visited Montevideo for a second time to play the
Teros, beating the locals 34–6. Another short undefeated streak occurred over 1987/1989, which was broken by a 19 to 17 loss against Chile. This was followed by a sound loss to Argentina and loss to a new opponent, the
United States Eagles.
1990s The 1990s started off with wins against of Chile, Brazil and Paraguay. This was followed by more wins over their traditional opponents, though Uruguay still lost to Argentina, they also played
Canada in a competitive 28–9 loss in 1995. Uruguay played some of the bigger nations such as Argentina, Canada and the United States, although the Canada and U.S. games were a lot closer than some of their previous encounters. A huge success for them was qualifying for the
1999 Rugby World Cup in
Wales. They won their pool fixture against Spain, Uruguay finished third in their pool.
2000–present Uruguay came within 10 points of Argentina in 2001, and also played nations such as Italy in the same year. Uruguay won most of their matches against their traditional Americas opponents in the early 2000s. Later in 2002, Uruguay defeated Canada, winning 25–23. They followed this up with a 10–9 win over the United States. They again qualified for the 2003 World Cup. They won their pool fixture against
Georgia 24–12. Uruguay's qualification for the
2007 World Cup started in
Americas Round 3a, where they were grouped with Argentina and Chile. After losing their first match 26–0 to Argentina, they defeated Chile 43–15 in Montevideo, which saw them enter Round 4. In round 4 they faced the
United States, and Uruguay lost on aggregate, and moved onto the
repechage round as Americas 4. Uruguay played Portugal in the repechage over two legs — losing the first in Lisbon and winning the second in Montevideo — but lost on aggregate points and failed to qualify. in
Montevideo, home of
Los Teros. Uruguay lost the
2011 Rugby World Cup qualification. Uruguay had won the
2009 South American Rugby Championship "A" by defeating Brazil and Chile at the Estadio Charrúa. Uruguay then lost to the United States 22–27 and 6–27. In the repechage, Uruguay defeated Kazakhstan 44–7, but in the battle for the 20th and final spot at the 2011 Rugby World Cup, Uruguay tied Romania at home 21–21 and lost 12–32 in Bucharest. before the
Pool A match against
Wales in the
2015 Rugby World Cup During the
2015 Rugby World Cup qualifying, Uruguay won the
2013 South American Rugby Championship "A", getting wins at the
Estadio Charrúa against Brazil (58–7) and Chile (23–9). In March 2014, Uruguay faced the United States in a NACRA-CONSUR playoff for the last Americas qualification spot. Uruguay tied the home leg 27–27, but lost the away leg 32–13. Uruguay then moved to the repechage, where it defeated Hong Kong 28–3 at the Estadio Charrúa, to face Russia for the 20th and final spot at the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Uruguay qualified for the 2015 Rugby World Cup by defeating Russia by an aggregate score of 57–49 in the two-game series, winning the second game at home 36–27 in front of 14,000 fans at the Charrua Stadium. Uruguay claimed three wins and two losses at the
2016 Americas Rugby Championship, but ranked fourth out of six because they only scored two bonus points. In
2017 the team also claimed three wins and two losses, finishing third. On 3 February 2018,
Los Teros qualified for
2019 Rugby World Cup as
Americas 2 after beating Canada in the home-away leg, and started it with a surprising 30–27 win over
Fiji on 25 September: it was Uruguay's first World Cup win in 16 years. On 30 October 2019, nightclub in southwestern Japan filed criminal complaint against players from the Uruguay team for 2019 Rugby World Cup for allegedly damaging property. In 2021, Uruguay qualified for the
2023 Rugby World Cup as Americas 1, after a 1–1 series draw with the
United States They lost the first game 19-16, but won the second game 34-15. They won on aggregate points (50-34) and are in Pool A with
New Zealand,
France,
Italy and
Namibia. ==Record==