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Chile play host to Romania on Saturday. The match is an opening round fixture in the World Rugby Nations Cup. Los Cóndores have home advantage due to the Americas hosting the July Internationals. Matches will be played in Europe in November.
Chile and Romania are in the World Rugby Nations Cup rather than the Nations Championship. The competition has been set-up as a 12-team second division below the Nations Championship but without promotion and relegation. Whether this changes or not continues to be a hot topic in the wider rugby online community.
The Nations Cup participants are the twelve Rugby World Cup 2027 teams that were excluded from the Nations Championship. The Nations Championship contains Argentina, Australia, Fiji, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa playing as the South and the Six Nations as the North. The inclusion of Japan in the South adds to the controversy of having a closed-shop competition with hand-picked teams.
World Rugby established the Nations Cup with Canada, Chile, Samoa, Tonga, Uruguay, USA, Georgia, Hong Kong, Portugal, Spain, Romania, and Zimbabwe. This is a change from past Rugby World Cup cycles. On the one hand it guarantees international competition for all involved in the year prior to the World Cup in Australia. On the other hand, those involved miss out on the opportunity of facing Tier 1 opposition.
The July 2026 matches see Chile playing at home against Romania, Hong Kong and Georgia while Romania’s matches in South American will be against Chile in Santiago, and matches against Uruguay and Samoa in Montevideo.
FORM GUIDE   |
Current World Ranking: 18 (66.72 points)
First test match of 2026.
Current World Ranking: 22 (60.67 points)
| Date | Opponent | Score | Result | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 8, 2026 | Germany | 30-24 | Loss | Heidelberg, Germany |
| Feb 15, 2026 | Belgium | 23-6 | Win | Iași, Romania |
| Feb 22, 2026 | Portugal | 44-7 | Loss | Lisbon, Portugal |
| Mar 8, 2026 | Georgia (Semi-Final) | 53-30 | Loss | Tbilisi, Georgia |
| Mar 15, 2026 | Spain (3rd Place Match) | 29-23 | Loss | Leganés, Spain |
| LINEUP CHANGES |
CHILE – first match of the year.
|
IN | OUT |
| 3 | Jean-Pierre Smith | Gheorghe Gajion |
| 4 | Nicolaas Immelman | Logan Weidner |
| 6 | Kemal Altinok | Matthew Tweddle |
| 7 | Matthew Tweddle | Cristi Boboc |
| 8 | Adrian Mitu | Nicolaas Immelman |
| 9 | Gabriel Rupanu | Alin Conache |
| 11 | Iliesa Tiqe | Toni Maftei |
| 12 | Jason Tomane | Fonovai Tangimana |
| 14 | Nicolas Onuțu | Damian Bonaparte |
| 15 | Marius Simionescu | Nicolas Onuțu |
| + DEBUTANTS |
– Manuel Bustamante, Emilio Shea, Max Schliesinger.
– Jean–Pierre Smith, Keanan Murray.
| MOST CAPS |
– S Videla (43), M Dittus (39), C Saavedra (39), D Saavedra (37), J Carrasco (37), J Eissmann (37), R Fernández (34), M Sigren (31).
– A Savin (42), M Simionescu (40), G Rupanu (31), D Plai (30), N Onuțu (28), I Hartig (24), J Tomane (21).
| LEAST CAPS |
– J Delgado (1), C Armstrong (4), N Saab (9), L Berti (10), E Tchimino (11), C Game (12).
– D Schwartz (1), K Altino (2), D Bonaparte (2), I Tique (2), L Weidner (2), A Mitu (3), M Graure (5), C Manole (5).
| + NOTABLE ABSENTEES |
– Augusto Böhme, Joaquín Milesi, Benjamín Videla, Tomás Salas, Nicolás Garafulic.
– Marius Iftimiciuc, Taylor Gontineac, Toni Maftei, Adrian Motoc, Atila Septar, Thomas Crețu, Gheorghe Gajion.
| NOTES |
- Chile XV played a warm-up match against Samoa, losing 45-14. It was a vastly different Chilean line-up.
- Martín Sigren is back to captain Los Cóndores after injuries ended his 2025 early.
- Major League Rugby (MLR) champion Santiago Videla is the most-capped active Cóndor with 43 caps.
- Romania travels to Chile with players from South Africa, Moldova, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, and Tonga.
- Seven of Romania’s starting XV are not homegrown players: Jean-Pierre Smith, Nicolaas Immelman, Andrei Mahu, Ilesa Tique, Jason Tomane, Dylan Schwartz and Nicolas Onuțu.
- Andrei Mahu earned 24 caps for Moldova before changing allegiance to Romania.
- The replacements bench includes an Americas player as Logan Weidner is from Canada.
- Jean–Pierre Smith and Keanan Murray will debut for Romania. Both are from South Africa.
- Romania’s roster at Rugby World Cup 2011 was 100% homegrown. At Rugby World Cup 2015 it was 87% homegrown (27/31) and for Rugby World Cup 2023 the Romanian roster was 63.6% homegrown (21/33).
- Chile’s 23 to face Romania is 100% homegrown.
- The match will be officiated by Damián Schneider (Argentina) in English. His assistants are also Spanish speakers but the TMO is not.
| PREDICTION |
Los Cóndores are one of the most improved teams this decade. Chile had never been realistically close to qualifying for the Rugby World Cup before the team did so for the 2023 edition. Chile’s investments in High Performance elevated the level of domestic players which contributed to beating Canada and the USA in RWC 2023 qualifiers. Los Cóndores qualified for RWC 2027 by defeating Samoa. The progress has coincided with Romania’s slide in the other direction. Chile are favorites to win in Santiago.
 LINE-UPS |
CHILE
1 Javier Carrasco, 2 Diego Escobar, 3 Iñaki Gurruchaga, 4 Santiago Pedrero, 5 Javier Eissmann, 6 Martín Sigren (capt.), 7 Raimundo Martínez, 8 Ernesto Tchimino, 9 Lucas Berti, 10 Rodrigo Fernández, 11 Nicolás Saab, 12 Domingo Saavedra, 13 Matías Garafulic, 14 Manuel Bustamante, 15 Cristobal Game
Replacements: 16 Jorge Delgado, 17 Emilio Shea, 18 Matías Dittus, 19 Max Schliesinger, 20 Clemente Saavedra, 21 Marcelo Torrealba, 22 Santiago Videla, 23 Clemente Armstrong
ROMANIA
1 Alexandru Savin, 2 Ștefan Marko Buruiană, 3 Jean-Pierre Smith, 4 Nicolaas Immelman, 5 Andrei Mahu, 6 Kemal Altinok, 7 Cristi Boboc (capt.) 8 Adrian Mitu, 9 Gabriel Rupanu, 10 Daniel Plai, 11 Iliesa Tiqe, 12 Jason Tomane, 13 Dylan Schwartz, 14 Nicolas Onuțu, 15 Marius Simionescu
Replacements: 16 Tudor Butnariu, 17 Iulian Hartig, 18 Cosmin Manole, 19 Logan Weidner, 20 Keanan Murray, 21 Alin Conache, 22 Mihai Graure, 23 Damian Bonaparte
| MATCH INFO |
Date: Saturday, July 04
Kickoff: 6pm (CL); 12am Sunday (RO)
Venue: Estadio Nacional, Santiago (CL)
Broadcasts: ESPN, Disney +
Weather Forecast: Light Rain, 9°, Wind S 5 km/h
| MATCH OFFICIALS |
Referee: Damián Schneider (Argentina)
Assistant Referees: Juan Manuel Martínez (Argentina); Cauã Ricardo (Brazil)
TMO: Tual Trainini (FR)
| HISTORY vs (2019-2025) |
07-16-2025 – Chile 40-16 Romania (Santiago, CL)
11-05-2022 – Romania 30-23 Chile (Bucharest, RO)
06-08-2019 – Chile 11-27 Romania (Valparaíso, CL)
| HEAD TO HEAD vs (2019-2025) |
Wins: 2
Wins: 1
